In Fountain Inn, South Carolina, probate is a legal procedure that a court must go through before giving effect to a will. Before putting a will into effect, a court has to decide that it is legitimate.

In the probate process, a Fountain Inn, South Carolina probate court has many duties, including ruling on a will's validity, making an inventory of the estate's assets, and making note of all the decedent's debts. Once the will is decided to be valid, the court will distribute the property according to its clauses.

Wills commonly name a person as the executor of the estate. If not, the court in Fountain Inn, South Carolina will name one. This is most often the adult individual who stands to inherit the most funds or property from the will.

Because the executor is responsible for really initiating probate proceedings and seeing them to finalization, the person chosen for this role is often the one who stands to inherit the most from the will - giving them an incentive to put in the necessary time and effort.

Duties of the Executor in Fountain Inn, South Carolina

Executors of estates have a many distinct responsibilities. First, the executor must start the probate proceedings. Probate almost always needs to be done before the property in an estate can be released according to the terms of the will.

Furthermore, the executor has to make sure that the decedent's relatives and other people named in the will have notice of the testator's death, normally through the filing of a copy of the official death certificate.

The executor will also have to gather and make accessible a list of all of the decedent's debts and assets, as well as a list of those who stand to inherit from the decedent.

Because the executor serves as the living personification of the decedent's estate, they are solely accountable for proving the validity of the will. This is a lot of work, but because executors are normally chosen based on how much they stand to inherit from a will once its validity is confirmed, they have a good incentive to see the process to finalization.

How Can A Fountain Inn, South Carolina Lawyer Help?

Because this can be (though isn't always) a fairly intricate process, it's a good idea to get a seasoned probate lawyer in Fountain Inn, South Carolina, especially if you find yourself being the executor of an estate, and aren't sure how to proceed.