What Is The Role Of A Personal Representative?

The term personal representative is synonymous with the legal terms “Executor” and “Administrator.” When a personal representative gets involved, someone dies, and they either had a will or did not have a will, and we have to start administering their estate. An executor is a person named in a will, and an administrator is someone who petitions the court to administer the estate when there is no will. They do the same duties; they have different titles. The personal representative’s job initially, whether it is an executor or an administrator, is to get the case filed in court and get it moving. They will file a petition to be appointed by the court; they will send notices to people applying to be the personal representative. The petition is to be placed on the hearing calendar for a judge to review and approve the petition.

Once that is completed, and a person is appointed as executor or administrator, that personal representative will notice all the creditors that the person is deceased and tell them they need to file their claims if they want to get paid. The personal representative has to inventory and appraise all the assets, accounting for everything going on, and make sure governmental authorities are adequately noticed of the death. Then the personal representative will have to put the whole thing together in an extensive log of accounting. When the judge approves it, only then can the personal representative distribute the assets to the beneficiaries, which is really what they were meant to do in the first place.