Named as executor

You’ve been named executor

What to ask for now, while asking is still easy.

Being asked is flattering for about a day. Then you start wondering what it actually involves, and the honest answer is: mostly finding things. Not deciding anything, not refereeing between relatives, not the parts people picture. Finding things.

Which insurer. Which of the four bank accounts is the live one. Whether the policy from the old job lapsed in 2011 or is still quietly paying out. Where the signed original of the will is, as distinct from the photocopy in the sideboard.

Nobody tells you this part when you say yes

Institutions are, on the whole, reasonable about this, and they all want the same two things. Certified copies of a death certificate, and more of them than you’d expect, because a good many places keep the one you send. And a document showing that you’ve authority to act. It goes by different names depending on where you are, and an attorney or an accountant will tell you which one applies.

Neither of those is hard to get. No institution can tell you that it holds an account in the first place. There are free ways to search for accounts and policies from a name alone, and they work, and they take months. Knowing the name of the bank turns that into an afternoon.

One thing worth knowing early, because it catches people out: executor and next of kin aren’t the same job, and you can be one without being the other. Next of kin is who a hospital calls, and it’s decided by relationship. Executor is who deals with the estate afterwards, and it’s decided by the will. If you’re both, you’ll get the phone call and the paperwork, usually in that order and usually in the same week.

The questions worth asking now

None of these are morbid and none of them need a solemn sit-down. They’re the ones that turn out to matter, and every one of them is easier to ask this year than next.

Which account the day-to-day money runs through, and whether anybody is already a joint holder on it.
Where the signed will actually is, who drew it up, and roughly when.
Whether there’s a safe, a fireproof box or a deposit box anywhere, and who has the key.
Whether there’s an accountant, and who did the last tax return.
What insurance exists, including anything left over from a former employer.
Who the doctor is, and whether there’s an advance directive.
What happens to the animals, and who has agreed to it.
Whether there are letters for anybody, and where they’re kept.

You can’t assemble this from the outside

People try. They go through the mail for a few months, keep a list of anything with a logo on it, and reconstruct about two thirds of the picture. The missing third always costs the time, because you are trying to prove something is not there. You can never be sure there isn’t one more policy.

All of it sits in one person’s head, and asking is the only way it comes out. If you have been putting off the asking, there’s a page on this site about exactly that, with the openers written out.

What it looks like once it’s done

A printed binder with tabs, in their words rather than yours. You will live in three of those tabs: the people to call, the papers and where each one lives, and which institution holds what. The binder opens on a plain checklist of the first two weeks.

The whole example binder is published on this site, free to read, so you can see exactly what you’d be holding before anybody buys anything.

The tabs described above: the whole example binder.

The openers, written out, for the asking part: talking to your parents.

Where this stops

It gives you no authority at all: A binder isn’t a legal instrument and holding one doesn’t make you anybody’s representative. Your authority comes from the will and from whatever your jurisdiction requires after that. This only tells you where to look and who to call.
It doesn’t file anything: There’s no probate paperwork in here, no forms and nothing submitted to anybody. It’s a record of what exists and where it is, and every actual process is still done the usual way, in the usual place.
It’s only as complete as the answers: If a question was skipped, the binder prints the gap rather than a guess. You’ll still find things that aren’t in it. But you won’t be hunting for a bank you never knew about.
No passwords, ever: It records no password, no PIN and no safe combination, so getting into an account is a conversation with the institution rather than a rummage.
It runs on a Mac: macOS 15 Sequoia or later. Whoever is filling it in needs one; you can be sitting beside them for the whole thing. That is how most of these get done anyway.

Questions people ask at this point

Can I fill it in on their behalf?

With them, yes, and that’s what the parent mode is for: the questions come in bigger type, phrased to be asked out loud, and it prints a page of openers to bring along. Filling it in without them is a different thing and produces a worse binder, because the useful half is the context only they have.

They won’t tell me everything.

Then the binder has a gap in it, and that’s a legitimate outcome rather than a failure. Anything can be skipped. A family that knows there’s something unaccounted for is in a much better position than one working from an answer somebody invented.

They did something like this years ago. Is it still any good?

Probably in part. Banks change, agents retire, policies end. The binder prints the date each entry was last looked at and puts a small mark beside anything that has been sitting a while, so a review is a matter of going through the marks rather than starting again.

Does it replace the will?

No, and it doesn’t try to. It records where the will is and who holds the signed original. Executors ask that first, and it is the question nobody can answer.

Where to start

Read the example binder, then take the list above to the next visit and get through three of them. You aren’t trying to finish. You’re trying to find out how much of it nobody has ever written down, and that answer usually arrives inside ten minutes.