Personal Representative

Do you need to retain a Nevada personal representative lawyer to help you? This all depends on your familiarity with probate in your state and your comfort level with handling the administration of a deceased person’s estate. Scheduling a consultation with an experienced personal representative lawyer in Nevada is the best way to be clear about these responsibilities and to get further insight about how to prepare.

What’s Involved in Probate?

There are many different things to think about when serving as a personal representative and you might not have realized all of the different tasks and liabilities associated with you for serving in this role until after you are appointed and after your loved one has passed away. This is when it is beneficial to contact a personal representative lawyer in Nevada to get more advice about how to proceed. A personal representative begins by opening the probate estate in the court in which the deceased person lived.

After they have been formally appointed as the personal representative, they will then need to gather all of the assets inside the estate and notify creditors about the formal opening of the estate. This is the first step in the process of administering the entire estate but it is an important one because it will dictate everything that comes next. For example, all of the assets inside the probate estate need to be totaled up and analyzed to determine which of those may be used to pay out creditors. An administrator has numerous different important responsibilities all of which should be taken seriously.

What Do I Do First?

One of the first and most important things to do is to gather all of the items belonging to the deceased’s estate. Some of the papers you come across might link to assets not actually owned by the estate, like a life insurance policy. Keep those organized regardless even though they won’t be entered to probate for formal processing there and will instead pass outside of probate.

You might discover that it’s more difficult than you expected to find all the paperwork and other materials for your loved one’s estate. If you can find a knowledgeable personal representative lawyer in Nevada to help you, you can make this process that much easier and faster.

Most family member personal representatives have limited time in order to handle important probate tasks. They just don’t have the ability or extra time to sort through all these details. But at the same time, they have a legal responsibility to meet all the requirements of their role.

This is a case in which it makes sense to retain legal counsel to guide you through probate and all aspects of estate administration. It will be much easier for you to handle when it’s broken down into smaller tasks that can be supported by the knowledge of a lawyer.

Most family members are not formally trained to handle these concerns, which is why it gets passed off to a loved one. You might even try to work with other family members who were close with the deceased. Usually this makes it easier to find initial paperwork like the will, but plenty of spouses are not even sure where to find the most accurate information about their loved ones.

If you’re stuck and unsure how to proceed, make sure to share your concerns with an experienced lawyer. As a personal representative you do not need to take all this responsibility on yourself without getting the support you need. If you have more questions, set up a time to speak with a personal representative lawyer now.