Understanding the Estate Administration Process in South Carolina
Taking care of a person’s estate after they die can be a complex legal and financial process, and most people doing it lack experience in those areas. It can be very difficult to do everything right with no preparation or knowledge.
Estate Administration
An estate refers to all of the assets that a person leaves behind, like cash, a house, investments, or retirement accounts. If they left a will, then the will should specify how those assets are supposed to be distributed. This can be a simple or a highly complex process, and it is up to the administrator to make sure that they follow the will. After paying off outstanding debt and any taxes due, the administrator has to work out which assets should go to which people and how to carry out the transactions.
The administrator has to tell everyone with an interest in the estate of the person’s death. That includes beneficiaries, heirs, and anyone that had lent the deceased money, like a bank. Then the administrator can make a list of all the assets and values and move on to paying off bills and taxes. Finally, they send the remaining assets out to the heirs and let the probate court know that the process is complete. A probate court is in charge of estates and estate management, and they will be looped into the process.
The estate process varies from state to state, and it gets more complex if there were assets in multiple states. However, the basic process and order of steps remain the same no matter what kind of estate or will there is.