Customer Reviews

Executor's Guide: Settling a Loved One's Estate or Trust

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It hard enough when your parent unexpectedly dies and you discover you are the executor of the estate. There are so many questions and so little time. This book is a godsend. It covers everything you need to know from the moment your loved one passes. It describes step by step, in plain english fashion, what needs to be done in the first week, the first month, and in the future. Everything from death certificates, to funeral arrangements, to claiming life insurance, and, of course, dealing with the estate. It's all in this book. It is your one-stop resource for unbiased, easy to understand, how-to information. This is THE book to have even if you are not an executor. It will help your entire family. It answers so many questions and takes the mystery out of settling an estate. It's like having an estate attorney in the family. It has helped my family tremendously.

Books from Nolo Press have always been easy to understand and use. This book is no exception and contiunes their fine tradition of making legal processes accessible to ordinary folks like you and me.

An excellent guide for those of us struggling to manipulate the legal maze of probate. After having read the book, I was able to avoid asking as many questions of an attorney resulting in savings to the estate of hundreds of dollars. More importantly, I was able to deal with heirs and family members in a fair and intelligent manner. No one has been able to complain of things not being explained clearly or of the process moving too slowly. I would recommend the book to anyone who is about to administer an estate.It is a great tool for an heir or family member who simply wants to be better informed.

This book does a fine job of providing a basic overview of all steps of the probate process and for settling a trust. It is well organized, easy to read, and provides good sources of additional information.

However, it does not provide advice on how to handle semi-complex situations that often arise during probate or while managing a trust. While very complex questions of law should be left to professionals and not hastily discussed in a do-it-yourself book, some treatment should have been give to such things as how to deal with banks and other holders of property who do not recognize the authority of the trustee or executor or what to do to settle disputes with an attorney-in-fact under a durable power of attorney or between co-trustees.

I purchased this book because I was looking for a good guide for a trustee who was managing a living trust for a trustor who was declared incompetent. This is an increasingly common situation and the book completely ignores it, instead only discussing trusts in the context settling the trust or a deceased trustor-- as the title of the book suggests.

This book is great starting point, but if the estate or trust you are settling is not perfectly planned and drafted, you will likely still need the help of a professional.

Despite the shortcomings, I am yet to find a better guide. I would give it 3.5 stars if I could.

I discovered this book in the our city library, and decided to purchase it as I felt that it would be very useful. It covered most of the areas of information an Executor or Trustee would want to know. My neighbor also read the book and some of the subject areas made her decide to go back to an attorney with more questions concerning her current Trust.

I would highly recommend this book for individuals who may become Executors or Trustees. It covered information in a simplistic manner in lieu of using lawyer language. It also covers tax ramifications but is not the basic goal of this helpful publication.

I purchased this book in June 2006 along with another Nolo publication called "Get It Together: Organizing Your Records for Loved Ones". Both books offer a treasure trove of information, resources, forms, websites, government agencies, etc. to plan the nuts and bolts of your estate should there be an unfortunate call from the grim reaper for you or close relatives or friends.

I feel such a sense of freedom and security knowning all my affairs are in order should I be involved in an accident, be incapacitated or die. In addition, I have educated myself now in a cogent state of mind. The Executor's Guide covers a lot of territory, so you do not what to be learning what to do under emotional and tragic circumstances if at all possible.

Just by looking at the Table of Contents alone, I think it's safe to conclude there will be a number of chapters of where you will have a basic understanding of the title, but lack a more detailed appreciation of the subject matter. All materials are presented in a down to earth style with hints, tricks and traps to avoid along the way.

Executor's Guide is at it's greatest when discussing an event or responsibility, who does and doesn't need to be involved, discussing the legal ramifications and how the legal system works generally with respect to the event and the next steps to take. Please pickup this excellent resource you can share with others in your family or friends, so you can effectively deal with someone's estate if you are asked and learn some tips to manage your own records.

I read this after also reading the similar Dummies book, and the good thing was that I learned some aspects of managing a Trust from each source. However, this book was lacking in a lot of the details that I'm still trying to fill in, especially dealing with certain tax issues. And, a bit shamelessly, this book promotes a whole line of other Nolo books to buy to fill in these gaps, which in the end you probably need about 3-4 other books, and another $100 or so. I do think the general information given was good, it obviously doesn't address each and every detailed situation that arises.

I still haven't found a really good source for guidance on bookkeeping/accounting, and there isn't really any software package that I've found that addresses managing a Trust which must make distributions to more than one beneficiary, which means either I haven't been looking hard enough (though I've tried) or that this is such a niche need that it doesn't exist (which is hard to believe).

Between this and the Dummies book (Estate and Trust Administration for Dummies) I'd actually recommend the Dummies book over this one.

I would recommend The Executor's Guide not only to people who have been (or expect to be) named executors, but to anyone preparing a will or living trust. One of the most valuable chapters, in fact, is designed to help a future executor, by listing information he or shw would need to settle your estate -- bank accounts, location of vital records, etc. For those who are about to go through probate or distribute property held in trust, the book literally gives step-by-step instructions, all with a minimum of legalese and jargon. My only criticism is that some ideas -- even whole paragraphs -- are repeated in different chapters. But if you don't intend to read the book cover to cover, that wouldn't be a problem (and it might not bother you even if you do).

This is a good book to have on hand. It helped get me started on my job as executor. The only thing that the book didn't mention is if one thing has to go through probate court, it all has to go through. After my Mom's death, we thought that we wouldn't have to put everything through probate court (like the book says), but since her house and car was not jointly owned, the lawyer said her stocks, bonds, bank accounts, etc had to go through probate. She went to all the trouble to have them as a joint account with myself, or made payable on death so that it all didn't have to go through the courts but we find out that it does. That means the lawyer will get 2% of her total estate. Of course if the lawyer who had wrote up her will had told her that, he would have lost out on alot of money upon her death. So all in all, the book was a big help getting me started, alot of information. I would highly recommend this book if you are appt. as anyone's executor.

I think this book is wonderful. It is packed with content. And it's very informative. However, I wasn't particularly impressed with its organization. There are many books that could be written to help an executor do his or her job in adminstering and settling a decedent's estate, among them would be the following titles:

EXECUTOR DUTIES
1. An executor's guide about an executor's role, responsibilities, and fiduciary duty
2. An executor's guide on what to do when the decedent dies
3. An executor's guide to what constitutes the unauthorized practice of law
4. An executor's guide to estate property
5. An executor's guide to estate liabilities
6. An executor's guide to professionals who help in the administration of an estate
7. An executor's guide to services offered and performed by estate attorneys
8. An executor's guide to settling a trust (if the executor is a trustee)

THE LAW
9. An executor's guide on how to read a will
10. An executor's guide to the laws of intestacy
11. An executor's guide to probate procedure
12. An executor's guide to guardianship law
13. An executor's guide to disclaimers for post-death estate planning
14. An executor's guide to Louisiana custom, law, and procedure regarding an executor's duties

TAXES
15. An executor's guide to federal estate taxes
16. Case studies: Completed Federal Estate Tax Forms
17. An executor's guide to state inheritance taxes
18. Case Studies: Completed State Inheritance Tax Forms
19. An executor's guide to generation skipping taxes
20. Case studies: Completed Generation Skipping Tax Forms
21. An executor's guide to income taxes
22. Case studies: Completed Income Tax Forms

The instant book being reviewed was close to 500 pages long. Each one of the suggested books above could easily be 500+ pages long if written well and completely. In fact, #s 10 and 11 could be done for each state and probably be 500+ pages each. The point is, that for the instant book being reviewed to get a 5-star rating it has to be well organized so it can act as a springboard for the reader into other resources. In my humble opinion, this book does not force the reader to quickly and easily grasp the material presented. Accordingly, I have bumped down its star rating. But don't take my word for it. Judge for yourself. Does the book cover the 22 topics listed herein above in a clear and organized manner?

This book totes itself as an "excutor's" guide. But I think it is better defined as an adminstration and settlement guide for executors AND TRUSTEES. Thus, I would change the title a bit to make it more representative of what the book covers.

I think Part I (Getting Ready) along with chapters 3 (The First Week), 4 (The First Month), and 9 (Managing Money & Paying Bills) should be moved to the end of the book and renamed Appendix A. And I think the title of the new Appendix A should be "Roles, Responsibilities, & Fiduciary Duty." I would move chapters 6 and 7 to the end of the book and call them Appendix B. Reading a Will is something an executor must do, but it is ancillary to his or her roles, responsibilities, and fiduciary duty. And I think Part IV (Getting More Help) should be made Appendix C. The current Appendix A should be renamed Appendix D.

I think the middle of the book should be reordered as follows:

8. Taking inventory
>>5. Life Ins, SS, & other benefits
>>15. Retirement plans
>>16. POD assets
>>13. Survivorship property
>>14. Community property
12. Property that doesn't go through probate
18. The regular probate process
17. Special procedures for small estates
11. Taxes

I'm not sure where Chapter 10 belongs? It seems to be just thrown into the middle of the book. I think it should at least have been positioned somewhere close to Chapter 20 (Managing a Child's Trust). 4 stars!

Several years ago, my husband was asked if he would be an executor of a will - "Sure". We recently had our first children and we need to write our own will. It had me thinking "do we even know where your aunt's will is?" "what do we do as an executor?"

I read it word for word for four chapters where it gets you through the "first month". Overall, those were very helpful. Once I got to Chapter 5, I reviewed the outlines and read a few pieces that seemed interesting (like Custodians/Guardians).

Pros:
-Broad range of information to cover many conditions across the states (at least for someone who is not a lawyer and has not been through this before)
-Lots of helpful information for those who may have really be responsible for EVERYTHING (funeral plans and all). They even give advice on funeral related topics.
-Links to additional websites
-Consistent format makes it easy to follow throughout the book
-Short topics makes this easy to read, set it down, and pick it back up later.
-State index in the back gives you a high level reference (state estate tax? common property state? etc.). It also has relevant chapters listed as well. This is great if you live in a different state than the individual you'll be helping.
-Glossary in addition to the index in the back.

Cons:
-It does not cover Louisiana law

Sections/Chapters:
-Getting Ready (Overview, If you're asked to be an executor or trustee)
-First Steps (The first week, The first month, Claiming life insurance, social security and other benefits)
-Taking care of the estate (Make sense of the will, If there's no will, Taking inventory, Managing assets and paying bills, Caring for children and their property, taxes)
-Transferring Property (Property that doesn't go through probate, Transferring joint tenancy and other survivorship property, Transferring community property, Claiming money in retirement plans, Claiming payable-on-death assets, Special procedures for small estates, The regular probate process)
-Handling Trusts (Wrapping up a simple living trust, Managing a child's trust, Handling a bypass (AB) trust)
-Getting More Help (Finding more help, Lawyers and other experts)

This was my first Nolo book. I really liked it and will definitely consider others. I also liked how this book gave me the executor's view on finding and executing a will and will help me with developing my own will and trying to make it easy on those after I'm gone ;) I also plan to revisit this book after developing our wills to see how it ties back.

I recommend this book - it's great reference material. (Note, this review is for the 4th Edition)