The Personal Representative’s Best Friend: a West Palm Beach Probate Attorney or Resident Agent
Are you worried because you have been chosen to serve as the personal representative of your father’s West Palm Beach estate? Do you understand what a personal representative does?Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators know how hard it can be to go it alone. You may be obligated to retain a counsel as a “resident agent” if you are not a licensed attorney in Florida. Do you know what you have to do?
Gathering Assets
- To start you will have to gather the assets of the West Palm Beach decedent’s estate.
- How do you plan on doing that?
- For one thing you are going to need to be issued letters testamentary by the West Palm Beach probate judge.
- These will empower you to act on behalf of the estate in the future.
- What other stuff will you have to do as a personal representative in West Palm Beach?
Alert the Creditors
- Who does not love talking to creditors?
- As a personal representative you will be tasked with notifying all the creditors.
- How are you going to know who all the creditors are?
- For one thing you will have the known creditors who you have to personally serve but there are also the creditors you do not know.
- What do you do then?
- You have to publish a notice to creditors.
- This will give them fair notice that if they want to get paid they need to come forward.
- When do you get to cut the checks?
Paying out that Inheritance
- After you have done all the boring stuff you can look forward to what you wanted – thatinheritance.
- Did you know there are specific orders that you have to follow when paying out everyone?
- Do you know the order?
- Failure to follow this order could mean that you are on the hook for paying those that did not get paid.
- Do you think the other parties are going to give back their inheritance so that you can set the record straight?
- This is why it is so important to get it right the first time when it comes to West Palm Beach probate.