Components Of A Will – Why Have Professional Executors?
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Want to make a start on your will?
Making a Will is not about wealth it is about making sure that what you want to happen to your estate does happen. It gives you the opportunity to specify such things as who will administer your estate, who will care for your children and who will receive specific items of your property.
The term ‘professional executor’ means an executor who is paid to act as such. The term includes solicitors, accountants and the trust departments of banks. There are often advantages in having a professional executor, particularly where the estate is large and/or complicated or there are ongoing trusts to administer.
Professionals are not emotionally involved and the importance of this should not be underestimated. In the immediate aftermath of a death people go through a range of emotions including guilt, disbelief, anger and denial.All of these may be experienced in one degree or another depending on the closeness of the relationship and the circumstances of the death.
Occasionally, the bereaved relatives may feel unable to deal with things because of the memories involved or may themselves be ill and unable to deal with matters.Consider, for example, the situation where a person is killed in a car crash and his spouse is seriously injured. There may be a pressing need to deal with household bills, etc., or to arrange accommodation and funding for small children. Having a professional executor can be a godsend in such circumstances.
I have experienced several situations where the executor, being a close relative of the deceased, refused to give instructions or talk about the deceased for a long time after the death because it was too painful.Although creditors such as credit card companies understand the need for probate and so on they are unlikely to be sympathetic to a lengthy delay in sorting matters out because the lay executor cannot face dealing with them.
Even being ill and hospitalised is unlikely to buy you much extra time.
Another advantage of emotional detachment is that professional executors can sit back from family disputes. If you think there is any chance of your family not liking what you have written in your will, appoint at least one professional executor.
It may be that you have two children who have never seen eye to eye.
Appointing one or other as executor is a recipe for disaster and appointing both probably not much better. It is not uncommon for a bemused solicitor to find himself bombarded with letters and phone calls from warring factions in the family, both telling him how despicable the other party is.
Professional executors will be well versed in the relevant law and practice of estate administration.
If you have used words that are ambiguous or have used legal terms incorrectly a lay executor may misinterpret your wishes.
Indeed I wonder how many times wills have been administered incorrectly due to a failure to understand the words used. This applies both to home-made wills and to where a lay executor insists on administering an estate himself using a solicitor-drawn will.
There are time-limits to be observed for certain steps of the administration and many a lay executor has been caught out.
Tax can also be a cause of major headaches for the lay executor. If your estate is over the inheritance tax threshold by more than a few pounds it is probably unlikely a lay executor can cope without professional assistance.
Where tax is concerned, this need not be a solicitor of course.
A lay executor might consult an accountant for assistance with tax calculations or completion of income tax returns instead.
If the estate is complicated because you have foreign shares, a holiday home abroad or wish to create an ongoing trust, the burden on a lay executor will be enormous.
More on topic – Suppose You Die When Your Child Is A Year Old. or Professional Help For Lay Executors
- external sites: Common legal issues – The Law Society