What Does It Mean To ‘Administer an Estate?’
‘Administering an estate’ means doing the tasks necessary to wrap up a deceased person’s financial and legal affairs in accordance with the law on estates. When someone dies, often there are a number of matters to address: understanding their assets and debts, filing personal and estate tax returns, paying creditors, and distributing their assets according to their will, trust, or applicable law.
There are several methods that are available for administering an estate. Which method is chosen depends on many factors:
whether the deceased person had a will and/or a trust;
whether their assets are set to transfer to another person by operation of beneficiary designations, survivorship laws, or transfer-on-death arrangements;
how assets are titled;
whether assets are community property or separate property;
and other considerations.
Your loved one’s estate may need one of the following estate administration methods:
Probate
Probate involves the court, but it is not necessarily adversarial. If someone needs official legal authority to do things on the estate’s behalf, then we will petition the court to appoint the Personal Representative named in the deceased person’s Will, or if there is no Will, then a surviving spouse or others can be appointed as the estate administrator. The Personal Representative receives Letters Testamentary (if there is no Will, the administrator receives Letters of Administration), and the Letters can be used to show authority to act on behalf of the estate.
Our clients rely on our comprehensive probate handbook (provided after becoming a probate client) as a guide to working together to administer an estate through the probate process.
Trust Administration
If the deceased person had a trust, then trust administration will factor in to handling the affairs of the estate. A trust only governs assets that were funded or added to the trust, so if there are any assets that were not added to the trust and do not transfer by another method such as a beneficiary designations, then one of the other methods described here may be necessary in conjunction with trust administration.
Small Estate Affidavit Procedure
It may be possible to get access to a deceased person’s assets such as bank accounts if the value of the decedent’s assets is under $100,000.00. By signing a Small Estate Affidavit, which must meet certain requirements under Washington law to be valid, a person who would otherwise inherit the assets can get access to those assets without the need for probate.
When taking advantage of the Small Estate Affidavit procedure, you may also consider following the formal notice-to-creditors procedures found in RCW 11.40 in order to shorten the time period in which creditors of the estate can present their claims. Schedule an Initial Consultation with Sarah if you need advice about these options.
In sum, there are different ways to administer an estate, and the appropriate method depends on the circumstances.
