Estate Administration Overview
What happens to a person’s assets when they pass away?
At Pfalzgraf Beinhauer & Menzies we help families with the difficult task of administering their love one’s estate after their death.
A person is deemed to have died "testate" if they leave a Last Will and Testament. The Will directs how the person’s property (which is solely in their individual name) should be distributed and to whom. The process of Probate is the legal manner in which a deceased person’s property is distributed after their death.
If the decedent did not leave a Last Will and Testament then New York State law directs how their property will be disposed. This is called intestate distribution.
An "executor" is appointed for a person’s estate when there is a Will and an administrator is appointed when a person dies without leaving a Will. The executor/administrator is responsible for collecting the decedent’s assets, liquidating them and investing them during the duration of the administration of the estate.
The executor/administrator is then responsible for paying the valid debts of the decedent and filing an inventory of assets with the Surrogate’s Court within 6 months of their date of appointment. This inventory sets forth the date of death values for all of the decedent’s probate and non-probate assets.
Probate assets are those assets that are in the decedent’s individual name at the time of his or her death. Non-probate assets are those assets that are joint with the decedent and another individual pay on death, or transfer on death to a named beneficiary. As such, non-probate assets, which include life insurance, annuities, IRAs and 401Ks (if they have a named beneficiary) generally do not pay to the estate and are therefore, not distributed in accordance with the terms of the decedent’s Last Will and Testament or by the laws of intestacy.
At the expiration of seven months from the time that the executor/administrator was appointed by the Surrogate’s Court, the estate can be closed. The estate must remain open for seven months because this is the time frame allotted by New York State for creditors to file claims against the estate.
Since the estate must remain open for at least seven months from the date that a fiduciary is appointed, the average time frame for settling most estates is approximately one year.