Executors of your Will
The Executors of your will are the people that you nominate to carry out your wishes contained in your Will.
You can nominate between 1 and 4 or professional Executors such as a Trust Corporation or Probate Solicitors. If you nominate a person or persons then you don’t have to worry as they can appoint a professional to act on their behalf as Executor to do the whole job or to do any element of the job that the person you’ve nominated doesn’t feel confident to do themselves.
The Executors job has many responsibilities so it’s important that you nominate someone who you trust and feel is capable of carrying out those responsibilities adequately.
Often, a family with 2 grown up children will nominate each other (Husband/Wife) as first choice Executors to act on their own and then both children to act Jointly as reserve Executors. This will work fine and it allows the family to either take on the role themselves or to shop around to see if there is a professional who will do the job on their behalf for a fee that they are happy with. I allow families to make their own decision on this point as many people worry about the potential costs against their estate should a professional be appointed, however, if a family needs a fixed price quotation for this work I am able to provide one very quickly and ensure that the price quoted represents excellent value for money.
Many people get a little confused with the crossover of Executors and Trustees but the difference in the two jobs is easily explained so that the right people can be nominated, it’s very usual for both jobs to be carried out by the same people as they usually require the same attributes of being trustworthy and reliable but just in case I usually describe it in this way, the Executors job is to carry out the work as instructed in your will, this may take a few months, but once the estate has been totalled up and liquidated, the gifts can be given out and the residuary estate distributed then their job is done. The Trustees job is to continually manage any trusts set up under the will and this job is on going, for example, the trustees may need to have a meeting once a year to finalise the trust’s accounts etc.
