Speaking for you
Choosing your executor, also known as a trustee or the administrator of your estate, is one of the most critical decisions you have to make when you draw up your will. The person you select is responsible for managing your estate and carrying out your wishes. It's an important job – both an honour and a lot of hard work.

How do you pick the person you want to speak for you?

Choose someone you trust completely, who is comfortable working with financial information and patient in dealing with administrative details. Your executor must be able to act impartially on behalf of all your beneficiaries. He or she must also have the presence of mind to take care of many tasks very soon after your death.

It's crucial that your executor has the time to devote to settling your estate. The tasks involved can be very demanding and your executor may have to meet with many different experts, including your lawyer, financial advisor and insurance agent during business hours. You don't want to impose these responsibilities on someone who will not be able to make the time available due to their own family or work responsibilities.

You also want to select someone who will likely survive you. In any event, it's a good idea to name a back-up executor in case your executor predeceases you.

Strength in number?
You can choose two or more executors if you feel your estate is complex and would be best served by people acting as a team. If you name co-executors, make sure you pick people who can work together effectively. The last thing you – or your beneficiaries – want is your executors arguing about the best way to proceed with your estate.

Should you hire a professional?
You can also select a professional executor through a financial institution. Employing an experienced and unbiased professional as sole executor or co-executor might be well worth the expense, particularly if your estate is complicated or if you anticipate legal disputes arising out of your will.

What happens if you die without a will?
If you don't have a will, an administrator will be appointed for you by the courts to settle your estate. That person may not be the best suited to the job – one of the many reasons to maintain a legal, up-to-date will.

What does an executor do?
Before you finalize your choice of executor with your legal advisor, talk to the person or people you've selected. Explain the duties they'll need to take on, outlined below, and make sure they're completely comfortable with the responsibility. If they don't feel up to the job for whatever reason, accept their decision and either ask someone else or hire a professional to take on the work.

Arrange the funeral
The executor must obtain the death certificate and make funeral arrangements.

How you can help: If you have specific ideas about the kind of memorial service you'd like, make sure you tell your executor. And if you've prepaid your funeral expenses and/or burial, give your executor all the relevant information.

Locate the most current will
After your executor finds and reviews your will, he or she may need to meet with a lawyer to apply for probate, which confirms an executor 's authority to act on behalf of the estate. Probate is not required in Quebec or for very simple estates.

How you can help: Keep your executor informed about where you keep your will and other important documents. Keep in mind that your executor will likely have difficulty accessing your will if it's in your safety deposit box. Your lawyer will probably offer to store your will free of charge, where it will be conveniently available when needed.

Inform beneficiaries
As soon as possible, your executor must let beneficiaries know they were included in your will. As the process moves forward, the executor should keep everyone informed about the progress, as well as any delays, and when heirs might expect to receive their inheritance. How you can help: Make it easy to find your beneficiaries. Keep up-to-date address and telephone information for each beneficiary with your will so your executor doesn't have to spend time tracking them down.

Notify organizations and business associates
All the financial institutions and organizations you dealt with must be informed of your death. This includes banks, credit card companies, investment companies, insurance companies and landlords. It also includes clubs you belonged to, charities you donated to, magazines you subscribed to and service providers such as telephone, cable and Internet companies. Any pre-authorized payments will have to be stopped. Your executor will generally open a bank account for the estate so any credits made payable to the estate can be easily accounted for.

How you can help: Keep lists of all the companies and organizations with whom you have financial arrangements, along with complete and accurate contact information. Think about all the people you'd have to inform if you were moving – and how hard it would be to track down everyone someone else dealt with.

Claim benefits
The executor must apply for life insurance benefits and the Canada Pension Plan death benefit, if applicable.

How you can help: Keep copies of insurance policies and Canada Pension Plan records with your will.

Compile a comprehensive list of estate assets
One of the most potentially time-consuming tasks an executor must complete is to create a list of all your assets – every bank account, registered plan, investment, pension, property and other items of value you owned. Then he or she must locate each asset, secure, value and insure it, if appropriate. Your executor will manage the assets in the estate until they are disbursed, according to the latitude you assign him or her in your will. Your executor must keep detailed records of anything that is bought or sold on behalf of your estate, for the courts and your beneficiaries.

How you can help: To ensure nothing is missed or forgotten, maintain good records that list all your assets and where they can be found.

Pay estate debts and expenses
Your executor is responsible for paying all debts and expenses owed by your estate, including funeral bills and taxes. Generally, the money to pay these costs comes from your estate. However, if an executor distributes all the assets of an estate and then discovers an unpaid bill, he or she can be personally liable for the expense.

How you can help: Specify in your will which assets should be sold if necessary to cover debts and expenses. This removes any confusion over, say, whether to sell a cottage, part of a business, or your mutual fund investments. It can also allow you to make tax-efficient decisions about what will be sold or ensure that there is sufficient cash in your estate to pay these bills.

File the final tax return
Revenue Canada requires the executor to file outstanding tax returns from past years and a final return for the year of death. In addition, each year the estate retains any assets, an estate tax return must be filed.

How you can help: File a tax return every year so your executor only has to deal with the tax returns for the year of death.

Administer trusts set up in the will
If you leave any assets in trust for a beneficiary – for example, until a child turns 18 – and appoint your executor as trustee, he or she must manage the assets for as long as the trust exists.

How you can help: Leave detailed instructions in your will about how you'd like any trusts administered. If you expect a trust to be in effect for many years – for example, in the case of a child who's very young – consider hiring a professional truste.

Distribute bequests
The most obvious task of an executor is to distribute your bequests. This includes personal items, such as family heirlooms, and financial investments, such as property, stocks and bonds. While smaller items may be disbursed right away, the residue of the estate should generally remain in the executor's hands until the final tax return has been filed and a tax clearance certificate issued. This ensures the executor will be able to pay any taxes due from the estate.

How you can help: To prevent disputes among beneficiaries, make sure your will is up to date and conforms to current legislation. For example, you are legally required to provide for your dependents who are financially dependent on you. If you try to disinherit your spouse or your children, they may have grounds to challenge your will in court.

How is the executor compensated?
Fulfilling all the responsibilities of an executor can be difficult and time-consuming. In many cases, an estate will not be settled for many months or even years, during which time the person you have selected to carry out your wishes could spend hundreds of hours working out all the details. Legally, an executor is entitled to compensation from your estate, even though friends and family often forego payment.

How you can help: To ensure that your executor is fairly compensated for his or her time and effort, you may want to specify an amount to be paid for executor services in your will. Clearly, a professional organization you hire as executor won't be shy about asking for payment. But if you're asking someone close to you to devote significant amounts of time to take care of your estate, you may want to remove any question about and whether – and how much – he or she will receive. Thank you to our estate planning expert.