The Solitary Personal Representative’s Probate Dilemma
If your main motivation for getting started on your estate plan is to reduce stress on your family members, then you feel a great sense of relief once you write your will, print it on paper, and sign it in the presence of two witnesses. By designating someone as personal representative of your estate, you have protected your family from having to argue about who should be personal representative. If you have named more than one person as personal representative, you might be feeling especially pleased with yourself. According to Maryland law, you have the right to designate one person as personal representative of your estate, or you may designate more than one person. You might think that, by naming multiple personal representatives, you are being fair and making life easier for your family, but in practice, your decision to appoint multiple personal representatives could cause additional problems. If you want more than one family member to have a role in your estate plan, contact a Washington, D.C. estate planning lawyer.
At Worst, Appointing More Than One Personal Representative in Your Will Amounts to Micromanaging From Beyond the Grave
It is your decision which assets to leave to whom in your will, and the personal representative’s role is to distribute your estate to the heirs listed in your will after completing the other probate procedures, such as settling the estate’s debts and filing a final tax return. When only one family member is a personal representative, but several are heirs, this can create an unequal balance. The personal representative may feel that he or she bears all the burden of completing the probate tasks, while the others just sit around and wait for their inheritance. On the other hand, the heirs might feel that the personal representative is controlling the whole process, while the other heirs are powerless to do anything except wait.
The trouble is that, if your will assigns more than one person the role of personal representative, the personal representatives must fulfill all their duties jointly; every personal representative must sign every probate document. This could lead to conflict between the personal representatives; you might be forcing them into a stressful situation they did not want.
What to Do When One Personal Representative Is Not Enough
Your motivation for designating more than one personal representative might come down to the very real possibility that, if you list only one personal representative, he or she will predecease you or be too ill to perform the role of personal representative. To address this, you should list one personal representative, plus a successor personal representative who can act as personal representative if the original personal representative predeceases you or becomes incapacitated. Another motivation is that the testator worries that just one representative, no matter how healthy and how experienced in financial matters, will find the job overwhelming. A solution to this problem is for the personal representative to hire a probate lawyer.
Contact Tobin O’Connor Ewing About Setting Up Your Family for a Stress-Free Probate
A Washington, D.C. estate planning attorney can help you decide on a personal representative for your estate. Contact Tobin, O’Connor, and Ewing in Washington, D.C. or call 202-362-5900.
Source:
registers.maryland.gov/main/faq.html#:~:text=Yes.,out%20must%20be%20done%20jointly.
