October 28, 2021

If you’ve been appointed as an estate executor in New Jersey, you have many different duties to fulfill. These must be handled with the utmost ethical awareness as other beneficiaries could accuse you of skirting or breaking the law. It can be very difficult when any type of conflict emerges in the process of estate administration especially if you are the executor and you are simply trying to close things out effectively. If not every party who is a beneficiary to the estate agrees with the plans that you have made, this can cause additional problems.

Executors in New Jersey need to file a refunding bond and release signed by every beneficiary upon paying a beneficiary his or her share of the estate. This needs to be filed directly with the county surrogate. This document requires a beneficiary to pay any part of unpaid debts owed by the estate if there are no other assets to pay them but it also discharges the executor of their duties.

The executor who is unable to get this document must then get an order of discharge from the probate court. Furthermore, the beneficiary share can be paid into the court if the executor applies for this directly. The accounting provided by that executor then gets audited by the surrogate’s office which charges a fee.

As you can see, this can be very complex and can add additional layers to the process of completing your estate administration in New Jersey. You may want to hire an experienced probate lawyer to guide you through this process and to minimize the possibility of conflicts with others.