How Much Time Will You Need to Set Aside to Administer an Estate?

When you are responsible for administering an estate, you are essentially being tasked with tying up all the financial loose ends that an individual has left behind them. You will also need to ensure that their assets and belongings are passed on to the people they wanted to leave them to. If the person who has died has not left a valid Will, you will need to distribute any remaining assets according to the intestacy laws.

The task of winding up an estate is a very emotional process. It also comes with a great deal of legal responsibility. This includes:

1. Responsibility to the person who has died and their beneficiaries: as a personal representative, you will need to ensure you are maximising the amount of money that will be left from the estate to pass on to the beneficiaries.
2. Financial responsible for any mistakes made: if you were to overlook any payments, debts or taxes owed by the estate and fail to settle these before distributing the residual estate to the beneficiaries, you could be required to cover the cost yourself. 

Whether you have been appointed as an executor in a Will or whether you have applied to be granted the role of administrator after someone has died intestate, you will need to be prepared to take significant time and care over the process. 

How much time does it take to administer a typical estate?

It is difficult to give clear guidelines on how long it might take to administer a typical estate. Estimates can be as little a few months for very simple estates to a few years in the case of contentious matters. This is largely because few estates are truly ‘typical’. There are so many varying factors involved in the process, and all of these factors could have an impact on how much time, attention and stress the task will demand from you. 

It’s also important to point out that a how long things take will, in large part, be out of your hands. Though you will be able to control things like how much time you are able to set aside to dedicate to the task, when you decide to put property and/or other assets on the market, or when you choose to contact relevant financial organisations or arrange valuations, there are a huge range of other things that you won’t be able to control.

What might slow the process down?

Some of the factors that might slow down the process of winding up an estate include the following:

Complicated or disorganised paperwork

The first task will be to assess the nature and extent of the estate. How long this will take varies a great deal, and much of this variation will depend on how organised the person who has died has been. For example, if someone has had plenty of time to get their affairs in order and discuss their estate plans with you before their death, then you might have significantly less investigative work to do during this stage. Alternatively, if the person who has died passed away unexpectedly, then it might take far longer to untangle their finances and understand the scope of exactly what you are working with. 

Waiting to hear back from financial organisations

Part of the process of assessing the estate will involve contacting any organisations or institutions that the person who has died either owed money to or was owed money by. It will be vital to get clear, final values for any credits and debits. Hopefully, these organisations and institutions will get back to you in a timely fashion, but this is not always the case. 

Extensive debts

If the person who has died had extensive debts, you may need longer to make a plan regarding how to handle the situation. This is true whether or not you were aware of the situation at the outset. 

Overseas assets

If the person who has died has a complex or extensive estate including property, bank accounts or business interests overseas, this is likely to add additional months onto the time it will take to wind up the estate. If you are dealing with a cross-border estate, you will almost certainly need to seek specialist legal advice, and you’ll often need to do this in each of the countries in which the estate holds assets.

Probate delays 

No matter how quickly and efficiently you are able to submit your application for probate, how long it will take for your application to be processed will be completely out of your hands. Receiving a Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration can take anything from 4 to 12 weeks. If there are particular delays at the probate office or they need to contact you to request further information, it could take even longer. 

Difficulties selling property

Selling property on behalf of an estate can be a long process. This might be because there is a lot of work to do in terms of clearing the house or completing necessary work prior to it going on the market. Even once the property has been listed for sale, there’s no predicting how long it will take to find a buyer or to navigate the conveyancing process. 

Is there any way to speed up the task of administering an estate?

It’s important to try to distinguish between the parts of the process you can control and the parts you can’t. Personal representatives can aim to be as efficient and organised as possible, and though this can certainly help – especially in terms of speeding up the process of submitting a probate application or preparing property for sale – it’s far from the whole story. 

Unfortunately, there is very little that personal representatives can do in the face of probate delays, long waits during the process of selling property or difficulties seeking out information about an estate. It is important to be able to rely on reserves of patience in situations like this. 

Personal representatives may also want to consider whether they really have the time and bandwidth to manage the whole process themselves, or whether it would be better for them to seek professional support. Specialist probate solicitors are able to work with personal representatives to handle much of the everyday work of administering an estate, which can be a big relief.

If you’re struggling with the prospect of how much time it might take to administer an estate that you are responsible with, why not get in touch? No matter what stage you’re at of the process, our experienced solicitors will be able to help you resolve any issues.

FAQs

How long will it take for probate to be granted?

Once you have submitted a probate application, the wait to receive a Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration can typically be anything from four to twelve weeks. In some situations, the wait can be even longer, particularly if the Probate Registry have to come back to you to seek further information. 

Does it take longer to administer an estate without a Will?

Much of the process of winding up an estate is very similar whether or not the person who has died has left a valid Will behind. However, things can take longer to resolve without a Will, as those closest to the person who has died will have to apply to the Probate Registry to be granted the right to act on behalf of the estate before they can get started. 

Can you wind an estate up quickly?

It is impossible to give an accurate timeframe of how long it will take to wind up an estate. Even when personal representatives work as efficiently and quickly as possible, many parts of the process will be totally out of their hands. For example, personal representatives cannot control how quickly probate will be granted or how long it will take to sell property on behalf of an estate. 

How long will beneficiaries have to wait to get their inheritance?

Beneficiaries are often keen to receive any inheritance they are due from an estate as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of work that has to be done administering an estate before assets can be distributed to beneficiaries. It is likely to take between six months and a year before beneficiaries receive their inheritance.