Frequently asked questions

What is probate?

Oregon law provides a process known as probate to wind up a person’s financial affairs after their death. Probate is the mechanism used to decide how to distribute a person’s money and property to their heirs, or those individuals named as beneficiaries in their will. Probate gives creditors an opportunity to make claims against a person’s estate so the decedent’s bills get paid. It also sets a time limit for creditors to make a claim and once that time is up a creditor has no right to bother a decedent’s survivors to pay bills. If someone passes away and has a will, or no estate plan at all, their estate will usually require probate to transfer their assets to their heirs or beneficiaries.

What is a professional fiduciary?

A Professional Fiduciary is a person or institution named in your legal documents to act on your behalf to manage your affairs and carry out your wishes when you are unable to. This is an umbrella term and may refer to someone serving as your Trustee, Personal Representative, Executor, Agent/ Power of Attorney, or other roles. See our Services page for a list of our offerings and descriptions.

Why hire a professional fiduciary?

Professional Fiduciaries are appointed instead of family members or friends for many reasons. Hiring a Professional Fiduciary can expedite and simplify the estate administration process, minimize conflicts, preserve family relationships, reduce stress during times of grieving, ensure decisions are made objectively, and in some cases keep administrative costs down by avoiding excessive attorney fees and litigation caused by inexperienced or contentious family members.

I named Estate Administrators as my fiduciary, now what?

Once your documents are finalized with your attorney, we request a PDF copy of each document naming Estate Administrators (if you are comfortable sharing them with us). Your attorney can easily email us PDF copies for us to retain. As always, any information we receive from you or your attorney will be strictly confidential. It’s also helpful if you let us know where you will be storing your original documents. Sending us an email for us to keep in your file works best: info@estateadmins.com. We are also happy to mail you some of our business cards for you to keep with your estate planning documents.

I am named as someone’s Trustee/ Personal Representative, can Estate Administrators help me?

Yes, we are often brought into estates by a family member or friend who is the appointed Trustee or Personal Representative and is unable or unwilling to serve. The appointed person generally can decline to serve, or resign from serving, and appoint a replacement fiduciary. This process is fairly straightforward and Estate Administrators can begin managing the estate immediately upon appointment.

How do I know if I need probate?

If someone has passed away with assets owned in their name individually, not jointly held, in a trust, or with a beneficiary designation, it is likely that estate will require probate to transfer that asset to the person’s beneficiaries. This could be a house with only the decedent’s name on the deed, a bank account, retirement account, or any other asset that is titled. There are other reasons for probate even if the estate doesn’t have assets, such as pursuing a claim for wrongful death or personal injury, which requires a Personal Representative to be appointed for the estate.

Can Estate Administrators create my estate plan for me?

No, we are not attorneys and do not draft estate plans. We recommend you work with an attorney that specializes in estate planning to ensure the legality and quality of your documents. There are many factors to consider when creating your estate plan that will not be accounted for if you decide to go the DIY route.

What is your fee structure?

For Trustee services, we keep detailed timesheets of the work we do during the trust administration and bill the trust quarterly. This is only once we are actually serving as trustee, we do not bill anything if we are named in your estate plan but you are managing your own affairs. We do not charge a percentage of the trust estate like some banks or other fiduciaries. If a probate is needed for your estate, we may take the statutory fee that Oregon sets for Personal Representatives. We hope that a probate is not needed for your estate if you are going through the effort of setting up a trust.

Do you serve as a medical fiduciary too? Will you be my healthcare representative under the Advance Directive?

On a case-by-case basis, we do accept nominations for medical fiduciary roles such as healthcare representatives or guardians. We are not medical professionals and only accept these nominations if our clients are very clear about their medical preferences and have attorney prepared documents that articulate their wishes. We prefer if a medical fiduciary, family member, or friend serves in this role, as it is more personal and does not require the same financial skillset that financial fiduciary roles do.

How are taxes handled?

The estate fiduciary is responsible for filing taxes for the decedent and the estate. We work with tax professionals to file any last income taxes (1040), fiduciary income tax returns (1041), business taxes, Oregon estate transfer taxes (OR706), and federal estate taxes (706).

  • "My husband and I have no children. We have a Trust and had previously named a financial institution as Successor Trustee, per advice from the lawyer who drew up the Trust. That was many years ago and, as we have aged, we became uncomfortable with a financial institution settling our estate. We learned of Estate Administrators LLC, met with them and realized they would bring a caring and personal touch as our Successor Trustee. They are knowledgeable, personable, responsive and obviously care about their clients. It's such a relief to know that our final wishes will be carried out in a competent and compassionate way."

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  • "I highly recommend Estate Administrators. My parents were not easy. At the end of their life, both of them were very difficult. As Power of Attorney, I was grateful to have Estate Administrators manage the trust. Having a third party kept family dynamics under control and protected my parents."

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  • "Im 63 years old and this was the MOST any business has EVER EXCEEDED my EXPECTATIONS ! Samantha was incredible! My mom's home was in a Reverse Mortgage and when she passed I thought there would be very little extra. Samantha and her partner went to work. They got a realtor, had the house cleaned out of 50 Years worth of stuff, disclosed repairs needed to the home that I said I would not sell without disclosing! They got much more than I thought we would get. They know the market, have the connections and got our family more than I thought was possible! Glenn H"

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  • "Hannah & Sam are wonderful to work with. They are professional, responsive and trustworthy. I would highly recommend them to family, friends and clients of mine."

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  • “It's not easy to make life decisions in the loss of a loved one. Samantha stepped in during this difficult time and worked with our family to make things right for all. Thank you for taking what could have been impossible and making something beautiful from our parents fruits of labor. We appreciate your dedication!”

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  • "Samantha and Hannah bring compassion, efficiency and incredible solutions to difficult life and death matters. I have had the privilege of working with them many times and I am always impressed with their professionalism and kindness."

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  • “Sam and Hannah are truly skilled at what they do. They handle such an emotional and complex process with ease. They get the job done in an effective and timely manner and keep you informed throughout. I highly recommend their services!”

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  • "It's hard to think of a business and two people I recommend more highly than Sam and Hannah. They are professional and detail oriented and have a uniquely deep well of empathy and kindness that is so important in complex situations."

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  • "Sam and Hannah are so knowledgeable and thorough. It feels so reassuring working with a team I can fully trust and communicate with."

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  • "The team here was incredibly professional, timely and communicative during the entire process - Sam and Hannah truly made me feel like I was in excellent hands, and alleviated so much stress during this whole experience! I could not speak more highly of these two, and will certainly return to them should I need their expertise again."

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  • "It was such a blessing to work with Sam and Hannah, they provided a level of knowledge and experience that really made things go smoothly, we never knew how helpful these services would be. We were very lucky to have found them."

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