MMR - Procedure for distributing inheritance

[heyrebekah]

My uncle recently passed away and my father is the executor of his will. I know how much I will be receiving, but not the total value of the estate.

[Deleted]

it will be state dependent but generally the executor has to provide an accounting to the probate court.

[LLYS]

It is my understanding that the executor of the estate must take care of final financial obligations of the deceased, pay for outstanding bills (final medical bills can take a while) from assets of the estate, sale of property as needed and file taxes for the year in which they deceased, while following the will instructions and distribute according to them as closely as possible. They are not obligated to share the will. This can be a time consuming task and the time table is not always under their control.

10% of an estate would be AFTER all financial obligations are paid where a directive of pay Ms X $2000 could be paid out sooner and not wait for the sale of property etc (unless there are no other assets from which the 2K could be taken.)

[drloretta]

I would assume it depends on a lot of factors.

My dad was my grandma's excecutor. He spent 6 months chasing down all my grandma's investments, bank accounts, etc. Some was in a trust that was designated to go to a handful of people, some individual things were designated for certain people, and the rest went to my dad. I can tell you that he didn't share with his mother's second husband's son how much the estate was worth, nor did he disclose it to his late sister's no-good children. Everyone got a pretty good chunk of money, so I'm pretty sure they took the $ he sent and ran.

On the other hand, my uncle died about a year ago. One of his 8 kids was the executor, and he turned the will and distribution into a clusterfuck extraordinare. Now 2 of the other kids are suing to have a 3rd party do a full accounting and distribute things as they should have at the beginning. In that case, if the case goes the "right" way, there will be a lot of transparency for all involved.