Closing the decedent’s business accounts was an easy task. During life, the decedent had a business that was active up until the spouse died six years earlier. Since then, the business languished. So, while putting together the inventory of assets, I found two accounts related to the decedent’s business that were still active. The business accounts, consisting of a savings account and a checking account, had little money. Therefore, since there wasn’t enough money in the business accounts to fund the estate account, I put them aside for a later date.

Closing the Decedent’s Business Accounts

The week of Thanksgiving 2012, approved as executor the week before, I was working on my administration plan as mentioned in the article The Administration Plan: A Necessity for the Executor. While working on the administration plan, with the estate account opened, I believed this was a decent time to close the business accounts. Therefore, on November 20, 2012, I called the bank to find out the closing process. The representative informed me of the following documents needed to close the business accounts:

• A copy of the death certificate.

• A copy of the letter of authority for executor.

• A driver’s license or other form of ID that can confirm your identity.
  

The next day, I rounded up the documents and walked to the bank, which was a block from my house. Since it was the day before Thanksgiving, no one was in the bank other than bored employees. So, after handing over the documents to the bank manager, closing the decedent’s business accounts went quickly and smoothly. While walking out of the bank with a check in my hand, I thought this was the easiest task so far in the administration.

Conclusion

As executor, I found that taking care of easy tasks around holidays helped me move the estate forward while giving me a break from the more involved tasks. In addition, holidays gave me time to step back and review the estate administration to date. As a result, after a holiday, I was able to move the estate settlement forward in a more organized way.

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