ANNOUNCER: I’m with Josh Laplante from Cohen Highly Lawyers. What’s a reasonable timeline beneficiaries should expect for estates to be finalized?
JOSH: While beneficiaries can get stressed after a few months, a loose term used is the executor’s year, which means for an estate of average size and average complexity, executors should be able to wrap everything up within about a year. But many factors can slow an estate’s administration down from farms, complicated corporate or foreign assets, or even court delays.
ANNOUNCER: When should beneficiaries contact a lawyer?
JOSH: If nothing has happened in an estate roughly around 10 months, we can contact the executor for an update and an accounting of their activity. Sometimes the slow progress is justified. However, we’ve seen cases where executors are, for example, living in the deceased’s home rent free or using their credit cards and money. We can review the deceased credit card statements and bank accounts to find out what is going on and either move things along or work towards replacing the executor.
