While waiting for the authorization letter, I decided to spend the time in the interim organizing the estate. So, I began organizing by creating a task list based on the Inventory of Assets as described in the article Setting up the Formal Probate Process Part 1.

The Task List

The following is the task list created from the Inventory of Assets:

• Contact the financial institutions that hold the accounts of the decedent and inform them of the death. 

• Inform the beneficiaries of the accounts that they can claim their share of the assets.

• Decide on what bank I want to use for the estate account.

• Continue to pay bills and close out credit card accounts.

• Cancel Medicare insurance and supplemental Medicare insurance.

• Find the home insurance policies for the townhouse and rental property.

• Locate the title for the car.

• Find the deed to the rental property.

• Locate the savings bonds.

• Continue to identify the personal possessions listed in the will for distribution.

• Separate the personal possessions that have value, that have no value, and have only sentimental value to some beneficiaries.

• Secure the personal possessions.

• Come up with a plan to distribute the personal possessions since the will didn’t provide a plan. 

• Establish contact with the beneficiaries of the will to keep them updated.

• Establish a dialogue with the tenants to keep them updated on the rental property.

• Contact the CPA my Uncle employed to discuss the estate and business document retention.

• Hire a Realtor to sell the rental property.

• Line up buyers for the car.

• Clean out the decedent’s home office and relocate to the executor’s home office.

• Set up a filing system for all the assets of the estate.

• Set up record keeping for income, expenses, and tax information.

After compiling the task list I began working on some of the tasks. Since some of the tasks didn’t require an approved executor, completing those few tasks in the interim would give me a great start to what could be a smooth estate administration.

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