Taxation & Estate Planning

How Much Information Should the Executor Give?

By Joel A. Schoenmeyer

It's always interesting when I'm facing the same situation in two different cases but from opposite perspectives. That's where I find myself with respect to the following issue:

beneficiary (child of X) has questions about the actions taken by executor (also child of X) before X's death, as an agent under X's power of attorney

The question is, to account or not to account? By which I mean, does the executor take the time to prepare an accounting of his or her actions as agent for the beneficiary? In Illinois, such an accounting is not required -- in order to obtain it, the beneficiary would have to file a citation action. But my preference, as an attorney trained in alternative dispute resolution, is to try to resolve court battles before they start. So, what's the harm in providing such an accounting, if it can actually allay the beneficiary's fears?

In my opinion there IS no harm, unless you are convinced that...

1. the beneficiary intends to start a court battle anyway; or

2. the beneficiary has acted unreasonably at other times, and you don't want to reward such behavior.

I guess these two points are related -- the executor has to make a cost/benefit analysis about whether it's worthwhile to provide the requested information. That means the beneficiary should strive to create an atmosphere in which there's a clear benefit offered to the executor for doing what is requested, and a clear detriment to NOT doing what's requested.

Full post as published by Death and Taxes Blog on October 19, 2008 (boomark / email).