The First 10 Days: A Practical Checklist for a Newly Named Executor
If you have just been told you are the executor, you are probably looking for a list. Here is one, in rough order, covering the first ten days.
A note before starting: this is organizational guidance, not legal advice. Estatey is not a law firm. Executor duties vary meaningfully by state, and if the estate involves a business, real estate in more than one state, significant debt, or disagreement among heirs, engage a probate attorney early rather than late.
Days one to three
Order death certificates. More than you think.
Certified copies, not photocopies. Most institutions require an original certified copy and will not return it. Between banks, insurers, retirement plans, the DMV, utilities, and the county, ten to twelve is a reasonable starting number for a straightforward estate. Getting more later is possible but slow, and every delay stalls something else.
The funeral director usually orders these. Tell them the number you want.
Secure the property.
If the home is now empty, lock it. Collect any spare keys held by neighbors or family. Check that the heat is on in winter and that there are no obvious hazards. If there are valuables in plain sight, deal with that now. Estates lose property in the first week more often than at any other point, sometimes to relatives who feel entitled to take a keepsake before anyone has authority to distribute anything.
Find the will and confirm it is the original.
Check the home, the safe, the safe deposit box, and the attorney who drafted it. If you find only a copy, ask the drafting attorney whether they hold the original.
Look after the pets. Genuinely urgent, genuinely overlooked.
Notify immediate family and close friends. Not an administrative task, but it belongs on the list because it always takes longer than expected.
Days three to seven
Locate the estate documents.
The will, any trust documents, the deed, vehicle titles, insurance policies, recent tax returns, and any list the person left behind. If they kept an organized record, this step takes an hour. If they did not, it takes weeks, and you should start now.
Contact the attorney, accountant, and financial adviser.
They may hold documents, know about accounts, and be able to tell you quickly whether probate is required. Call them before you start making decisions.
Find out whether probate is needed.
Not everything goes through probate. Jointly held property, accounts with named beneficiaries, and assets in a trust generally pass outside it. Many states also have a simplified process for small estates. Whether you need full probate determines almost everything that follows, so establish it early.
Confirm Social Security has been notified.
The funeral director normally reports the death, but confirm it rather than assume it. Payments received after death must be returned, and untangling that later is tedious. There may also be a survivor benefit for a spouse or dependent children.
Notify the employer, if there was one.
Final pay, unused vacation, group life insurance, and retirement plan balances all run through the employer. Group life is the most commonly missed asset in an entire estate.
Days seven to ten
Open the estate's mail.
Forward it to yourself. Then read all of it for at least a year. Mail is how you will discover accounts nobody knew about, and it is your single best discovery tool.
Make a preliminary list of assets and debts.
It will be incomplete. Write it anyway. Every institution, every account, every policy, every debt. This document becomes the spine of the entire process.
Do not pay anything from your own money.
This is the mistake well-meaning executors make most often. Debts are paid from estate assets, in an order set by state law, after you have authority. Paying a bill personally because it seemed urgent can leave you unable to recover the money, and can put you ahead of creditors who legally come first.
Start a ledger on day one.
Every dollar in, every dollar out, with a receipt. You will have to account for all of it, potentially to a court and certainly to the beneficiaries. Records that begin in month three never fully catch up.
Notify credit bureaus and watch for identity theft.
Deceased identities are targeted. A notification to the three bureaus reduces the risk.
What can wait
Not everything is urgent, and treating it all as urgent is how executors exhaust themselves in week one.
Distributing anything can wait, and generally must. Distributing before debts are settled can leave you personally liable.
Clearing out the house can wait. So can selling the car, closing most accounts, and cancelling subscriptions beyond stopping automatic payments from accounts you control. Emptying a house in week two is a common regret, both because things get thrown away that mattered and because family members who were not consulted rarely forgive it.
The thing that determines how hard this is
Executors who inherit an organized record finish the discovery phase in a week and spend their energy on the actual administration.
Executors who inherit a filing cabinet and a locked phone spend months on discovery alone, never feel certain they found everything, and are still receiving surprises a year later.
The difference is one document, written in an afternoon by someone who is no longer available to write it. If you are reading this as an executor, you already know which situation you are in. It is worth thinking about which one you are going to leave behind.
Estatey helps you record what you own and where it is, so the people who need that information can find it. Estatey is not a law firm and does not provide legal, tax, or investment advice. For advice about your own situation, speak to a qualified professional in your state.