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drsjws · Jan 5, 2011, 10:01 AM

My sister is executor of our Fathers estate. She has rented the house to us. We pay her $500.oo a month. The question is we live in the town where all the bills are due so she had us pay all the bills out of that $500.00. Then we send her what's lrft. The lawyer told her she can't do that cause she isn't doinbg her job as executor. Some of these bills are due on the fifth of the month and we get our check on the 3rd. So is that wrong. We send her all recepts on what we did with the money is that wrong or is that OK.

drsjws · Jan 5, 2011, 10:07 AM

I think my sister nad I are doing the right thing. All I want to do is help my sister out so she don't have any late fees on any of these bills.

ebaines · Jan 5, 2011, 10:12 AM

I don't see the issue here. Your sister has a fiduciary responsibility to protect the assets of the estate and to ensure your father's financial affairs are taken care of through the probate process. Since the house belongs to the estate, she has a responsibility to ensure that the bills are paid. I would hope that as executor she has a written rental agreement with you, right? If so, then I don't see why the contract can't specify that the renter (you) will pay for utilities directly and deduct that amount from your monthly payment to the estate.

I don't follow what the issue is regarding bills due on the 5th and you get a check (from whom?) on the 3rd? Please clarify.

drsjws · Jan 5, 2011, 10:24 AM

Out of the money we pay the insurance taxes the funeral bill and a loan our dad had . All bills are in this town we live in she lives about 45 miles away. So she thought it was easier for us to pay them we get ssi on the 3rd of the month.

Yes we have a rental agreement with her. As long as we send recipts to her to show where all monies went we thought we were doing the right thing. The utilities we pay out of our money but we pay the rest of the bills out of the 500

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AK lawyer · Jan 5, 2011, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by drsjws

... The lawyer told her she can't do that cause she isn't doinbg her job as executor.
...
So is that wrong[?]. ...

Beats me. What you are doing looks OK to me. I suspect that the lawyer either

doesn't understand what you are doing; or
is an amateur accountant and thinks from an accounting standpoint this system is fishy.

Fr_Chuck · Jan 5, 2011, 08:34 PM

It is an accounting issue,

The estate is to pay the funeral bill and the loan,

Also you open yourself up personally by paying your dads bill directly out of your own money, that really should never happen,

The estate does not have proof they paid it, you do, so if you wanted to cheat the estate, you could use these to prove you paid them and want the estate t pay you back.

The attorney is trying to make all the bills paid properly.

The issue with the debt, if you keep or start paying from your personal money, if the estate for some reason did not want to pay, you are taking over the debt personally when you start and keep paying it from your own personal money.

Your attorney is just trying to have all the reciepts, proof of payment all correct and done property for the courts I would assume.

As long as there is no challenge to the estate, as long as you or someone pays off the debt, there should not be an issue, but there "could" be issues, if a problem came up