As seen in the October 15th issue of The State
Journal.
It has been said that the only certain things in life are death
and taxes. Upon one's death, all the property and various
things that one accumulates during their life must be passed to
others. An Executor is the person chosen by the decedent in a Will
to handle this transition. If a person dies intestate, that is,
without a Will, then the personal representative will be called an
Administrator. For purposes of this article, we will refer to
either an Executor or Administrator as the Executor of an
estate.
In West Virginia, every estate administration must go through five
basic steps. The tasks that an Executor must accomplish to handle
the estate administration process include finding and controlling
all of the assets of the decedent, paying any debts, taxes and
claims against the decedent's estate, and distributing the
balance of the estate to the appropriate persons. The time frame
for an estate
