Named as executor in the UK: what you actually agreed to

Being an executor means you are legally responsible for gathering everything somebody owned, paying what they owed, and distributing the rest according to their will. It is an administrative job with legal weight, and it usually takes many months.

Most people find out they were named at the worst possible moment and have no idea what the role involves. Here is the honest version.

What the job actually involves

Six stages, in this order, and you cannot skip to the last one.

1. Find

   Locate and secure everything: property, accounts, pensions, policies, possessions.

2. Value

   Value the estate as at the date of death, which often needs professional valuations for property.

3. Apply

   Apply for the grant of probate, or confirmation in Scotland, which is the legal authority to act.

4. Settle

   Settle debts and taxes before anybody inherits anything.

5. Distribute

   Distribute what remains according to the will.

6. Account

   Keep records of all of it, because beneficiaries are entitled to see the accounts.

How long it really takes

Simple estates commonly take six to twelve months. Anything involving property, a business, overseas assets or a disagreement between beneficiaries takes considerably longer, and two years is not unusual.

The slow parts are rarely the ones people expect. Waiting for probate, waiting for a property to sell, and waiting for tax clearance take far longer than any of the tasks you actually perform.

The part worth taking seriously

Executors can be held personally liable for mistakes. Distributing the estate before debts are settled is the classic one: if a creditor appears afterwards, the shortfall can land on you rather than on the beneficiaries who already spent it.

This is why the order matters, and why the standard advice is to wait out the statutory creditor notice period before distributing anything. It is also why executors of anything complicated usually involve a solicitor, paid from the estate rather than from their own pocket. Placing a statutory advertisement under section 27 of the Trustee Act is the standard protection against unknown creditors.

You can say no

Being named does not oblige you to serve. You can decline, formally, provided you have not already started acting as executor. Once you have begun dealing with the estate, stepping back becomes much harder.

Declining is not a betrayal. Somebody named you years ago, possibly before they had a business or a property abroad, and possibly before your own life got complicated. If you cannot give it the time, saying so at the start is far better than stalling for a year.

What to ask for immediately if you are acting