Many parents want their children to be the people to handle their estates when the parents pass away. Traditionally, Wills are written that name a child as an Executor. However, this can be problematic in modern American society because we are a mobile people. It is very common for parents and children to live in far away states.
The problem is that the child Executor who lives in a different state than the one the parent resided in when he or she passed away is that the child might have to make many trips to the parent’s residential state to get the Will through Probate court. If the child cannot make the trips, then an attorney has to be hired to make the appearances instead. That can cost the estate money for every trivial Probate court appearance.
This does not mean that parents should not plan to have their out of state children handle their estates. It does mean that parents need to use less traditional methods of creating their estate plans. Fortunately, there are many ways that an estate can be created that do not rely on Probate like Wills do. The most obvious way to do this is to use a Revocable Living Trust as your primary estate planning instrument instead of a Will, but there are other tools that you can use. If your children live in a different state than you, ask an estate planning attorney about the best tool for you to use to make things easier for your children to administer your estate.
Stephen A. Mendel, Estate Planning Attorney
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