What does an executor do? The first 90 days

Before anything else: you can say no. Being named in a will does not oblige you to serve, and declining is a routine filing rather than a betrayal.

Worth knowing on day one, because the decision is far easier to make before you start than after you have half-finished the job.

Should I say yes?

Work through these honestly. One yes is not disqualifying. Three or more is a signal.

• Is there a business, a farm, rental property, or real estate in more than one state?
• Are the beneficiaries already in conflict, or is there a second marriage with children from a first?
• Does anyone dispute the will, or claim a newer one exists?
• Do you think the debts might exceed the assets?
• Do you live far from where the person lived and where the property sits?
• Is keeping receipts and filing on deadline genuinely hard for you?
• Is there someone in the family who would treat your appointment as an act of war?

A clean estate is a few hours a week for several months. A contested one is a part-time job for a year or more, done while grieving, with relatives watching every decision.

If you decline, do it properly and early. Before appointment, most states use a short renunciation form signed and filed with the probate court, after which the will's named successor or a court-appointed administrator takes over. After appointment it is harder: you petition the court to resign and may have to account formally for what you have already done.

One duty survives declining. If you hold the original will, you still have to deliver it to the court, typically within ten to thirty days depending on the state. Handing over the will and taking the job are two separate acts.

Executor, administrator, personal representative

Same job, different labels. Executor is the person named in a will. Administrator is appointed when there is no will or no willing executor. Personal representative is the umbrella term the Uniform Probate Code uses, which is why court paperwork says PR when the family says executor.

The authority is the same in substance, and none of it exists until a court grants it. The document is called letters testamentary, letters of administration, or letters of authority, and it is what a bank will actually honor. Until it issues, nobody has authority over the estate's accounts, including you.

That is the gap families hit with a power of attorney, which dies with the person. See does power of attorney end at death.

The first 90 days

Timelines are state-specific. Two windows apply almost everywhere: a short one for filing the will, and a ninety-day one for the inventory. Check your own court's deadlines rather than these.

Days 1 to 14

• File the will with the probate court in the county where the person lived.
• Petition for appointment, or file the small estate affidavit if the estate qualifies. See small estate affidavit.
• Order death certificates. Assume one certified original per financial institution.
• Secure the house, vehicles, and valuables. Change the locks if keys are unaccounted for. Tell the insurer the property is vacant.

Days 14 to 45

• Receive your letters. Nothing below works without them.
• Apply for an EIN for the estate. IRS Publication 559 lists this among the personal representative's duties, alongside filing returns when due and paying the tax determined up to discharge.
• Open the estate bank account. One account, in the estate's name, using the EIN. Every dollar in and out moves through it.
• Notify Social Security, pensions, and insurers.
• Start the inventory: real estate, vehicles, accounts, valuables, business interests.

The separate account matters more than it sounds. The most common way a well-meaning executor gets into trouble is mixing estate money with their own. Paying an estate bill from your personal card and reimbursing yourself later is fine if documented. Running estate money through your personal account is what makes a skeptical sibling's accusation look plausible, and you cannot un-mix it afterwards.

Days 45 to 90

• File the inventory. Many states adopting UPC-based codes require it within 90 days of appointment, often valued under oath.
• Notice to creditors. Publication in a local newspaper, plus direct written notice to known or reasonably ascertainable creditors. Under UPC-based statutes, notice to a known creditor is typically due within the later of four months after letters are first issued, or thirty days after you first learn of that creditor.
• Track claims as they arrive, and note the deadline for creditors to file. That deadline is what protects the estate from claims surfacing years later.
• Keep paying what must be paid: mortgage, insurance, utilities on property the estate is maintaining.
• Do not distribute anything yet.

That last line is the discipline the whole ninety days is built around. Beneficiaries will ask. The creditor window and the tax position have to settle first, because money handed out early is money the executor may have to produce personally.

Creditors, in the right order

Debts are paid from the estate, not by the family. As the CFPB puts it, if there is no money or property left in the estate, or the estate cannot pay, the debt will generally not be paid.

Two things follow. You do not pay estate debts from your own pocket. And you do not pay them in the order the phone rings. Every state sets a priority: administration costs and funeral expenses typically first, then taxes and certain secured claims, with general unsecured creditors, including most credit cards, last.

If the estate might be insolvent, stop and get advice before paying anyone. Paying a low-priority creditor ahead of a high-priority one can leave you personally liable for the shortfall. What happens to debt when someone dies covers the collector side, including what to say.

The fee, and the tax nobody mentions

Executors are generally entitled to compensation from the estate, set by a state percentage formula or a reasonableness standard.

The surprise is the tax treatment. From IRS Publication 559:

All personal representatives must include fees paid to them from an estate in their gross income.

An inheritance generally is not taxable income to the person receiving it. An executor's fee is. So for a child who is both beneficiary and executor, taking a $20,000 fee and inheriting $20,000 are not equivalent: the fee is ordinary income on your return, the inheritance generally is not.

Which is why many family executors waive it. Waiving before you receive it means there is no income to report, and if the estate's value reaches you as a beneficiary anyway, waiving is often the better arithmetic. Whether it is depends on the estate's own tax position and how the will splits things, so it is worth one conversation with the estate's accountant rather than a guess.

Records, because someone will ask

Assume you will have to account for every dollar, because in most states you formally will.

• Every receipt, including small ones.
• A log of hours, if you intend to claim a fee under a reasonableness standard.
• Copies of every notice sent, with dates.
• A written note of each significant decision and why you made it.
• Estate account statements, kept whole.

Send beneficiaries a short written update on a schedule, even when nothing has happened. Silence turns an ordinary delay into a suspicion, and most executor disputes start as a communication problem rather than a money problem.

After 90 days

The rest of the job is waiting out the creditor window, filing the final individual return and any estate income tax return, selling property if the will requires it, paying approved claims, distributing what remains, and filing a final accounting to close the estate.

A straightforward estate lands somewhere between nine and eighteen months. Anything contested, holding real estate that has to sell, or facing a tax question runs longer. See what is probate and how long does it take for the full arc.

What the job does not include

• Deciding the funeral. That authority usually comes from a separate state statute with its own priority list, and in several states the executor ranks below siblings. See does power of attorney end at death.
• Anything with a beneficiary form. Life insurance, retirement accounts, and payable-on-death accounts pass outside the will and outside probate. See payable on death vs will.
• Assets in a trust. Those belong to the successor trustee, a different role under a different document. See living trust vs will.
• Paying debts from your own money. Never. Not to be helpful, not to make a caller stop.

---

The 72-Hour File has a page for what an executor needs first: where the will is, which institutions hold what, which have been notified, and which documents exist, so the inventory starts from a record instead of a search of the house. See what is inside