It is now widely acknowledged that being an executor is not an honour – it’s potentially time-consuming, aggravating work. You need a financially experienced person with good organizational skills to be an executor – it’s not enough to just pick one of your children. Also, the idea of having an adult child be your executor without any compensation is being challenged., I looked at some potentially costly options for people who don’t have someone who can be their executor.
“Number One, it takes time and trouble, sacrificing your normal day-to-day life, to do the job and do it properly,” he said. “And, Number Two, you’re assuming a risk. Are you going to find yourself at the wrong end of a lawsuit by one of the beneficiaries who says, ‘Why did you sell the house for that low amount of money?’ I could go on and on about the nature of the complaints that a beneficiary might have about the way that an executor has carried out the responsibilities.
Executors are typically entitled to claim “fair and reasonable” fees for the time and trouble in administering an estate, and this amount tends to be in the 3 to 5 per cent range. One reservation parents have about paying a child serving as executor is that it shows favouritism toward that person and can be seen as diverting money away from siblings. Mr. Corbin said there are cases where parents specifically prohibit compensation to a child serving as executor.
Here’s what Mr. Corbin suggests for parents who recognize the time and trouble their executor will go to and want to open the door to compensation: simply add a sentence to the will that encourages the executor to claim compensation to the extent the law will allow. “There’s a message there,” he said. “Don’t feel guilty about making the claim.