My wife's mother passed away in Dec. 06. All household property was distributed. The house sold in March 07. All the postings were made in the paper etc and all known claims have been settled since around the time the house sold. The money left over has not been distributed.

The question: Is there any reason not to distribute the money and close the estate?
OH this is in NC.

Thank you.
Eric

Are you the executor of the estate, my mom is the executor of (her moms) grandmas estate, my Aunt (moms sister) is waiting for her money, BUT her ex husband and her no good fully grown lazy kids (my cousins) are hanging out at my Aunts house waiting for free hand outs. Are you in a scenario like that, do you give the money out in lump sum or make monthly payments to the other recipients and give them the interest too.

No we are not executor. We are waiting. The executor has done all that is legally required but continues to say he is waiting to see if there are going to be any surprises. It is a small estate around 100k split between 5 kids. As far as I know there is no interest(another issue) .
Thx, E

I would expect the final disposition to take place at about 12 months - for a small estate like this that's plenty of time. If the executor is nervous, he could make a preliminary distribution, keeping back, say, 25% of the estate just in case, and then wait another 6 months before finalizing everything.

Are you in a scenario like that, do you give the money out in lump sum or make monthly payments to the other recipients and give them the interest too.

The executor's responsibility is to distribute assets in accordance with the will. It's not up to him (or her) to decide whether any particular beneficiary is "worthy" of a lump sum or phased payments, and unless the will specifies otherwise he should be working to distribute the estate to the heirs as soon as practical. The exception would be if the will specifies that some sort of trust be established to handle the assets and to control distributions.

Thank you all... that helps me.