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![How to ease the process of being an executor Lori Trawinski sitting at desk on phone, looking at checkbook, papers flying in the air all around her](https://aarp.widen.net/content/bo6vid3cyl/jpeg/TMAS24_MONEY_01.jpg?crop=true&anchor=0,55&q=80&color=ffffffff&u=7xsf69&w=2048&h=1177)
When my mother asked me to be her executor, I thought I knew what that would entail: Gather up the money in her accounts, dole it out as directed by her will and tie up other loose ends. My mother had been my father’s executor when he died, and the process had seemed straightforward. I imagined that this sad task would take less than a year.
How wrong I was. It’s been nearly two years since my mother died, and I’m still not done. Mom did many things right. She had a will, a power of attorney and a health care power of attorney. She let me know who should get certain items after her death. Her estate was not complex. Still, it’s been an exhausting cascade of notarized forms, phone calls, faxes and difficulties. But I’ve learned a lot about how my mother and I could have made this easier. Whether you’re doing your own estate planning or you’re in line to be an executor one day, I have lessons for you.
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Prepare for the cost of dying
Most funeral and burial costs can be covered by a person’s estate, but belatedly; when a loved one dies, you have to pay up quickly and, if there’s money in the estate, get reimbursed later. I had two days to hand over $17,500 for Mom’s funeral, wake and casket because the funeral home required up-front payment and didn’t take credit cards. They suggested a company that lends money for funerals, but those lenders might charge 30 percent interest or demand your car’s title as collateral. Luckily, my siblings and I could afford the $25,000 total cost of Mom’s funeral and associated expenses without borrowing.
Lesson 1: It would have been great if Mom had set up a joint bank account with me, so I could access the money for the funeral.
Get ready for more up-front expenses
When you’re the executor, companies will let you report the death, but they won’t share account balances or make any transactions unless you have letters testamentary — legal proof of your authority to act on behalf of the estate. So until you probate the will and obtain letters testamentary, you have to pay the estate’s bills with your own funds, assuming you have any. In New Jersey, where Mom died, it took nearly six weeks to get the letters and another four to get access to her accounts, during which time I paid her bills — power, property taxes and more — out of my own pocket.
Lesson 2: Here again, a joint account with Mom would have helped.
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