9 Things Nobody Tells Ohioans About Being the Executor of a Parent’s Will

Losing a parent is hard enough without a stack of legal chores landing on your desk.

Ohioans named as executor may get a title and a long to-do list with very little explanation.

Here’s what the job can involve, including a few things people often learn late.

Note: This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Probate and tax rules, deadlines and dollar amounts are subject to change, so confirm the probate requirements with your county probate court.

1. Waiting for Letters of Appointment

Being named executor in your parent’s will doesn’t let you act for the estate yet.

Ohio law says no act or transaction by a fiduciary is valid before the court issues letters of appointment.

The statute makes room for two early moves, paying funeral expenses and taking necessary steps to preserve estate property.

Before the court appoints you, you sign a written acceptance of the job.

In it, you acknowledge that you can be removed for failing at the duties and penalized for converting property you hold for the estate.

Read it before you sign.

2. Who Holds the Will

Your parent’s original will may be in someone else’s hands.

If another person holds it, Ohio law lets you, as executor, ask the probate court in your parent’s home county to order it produced.

A person who intentionally conceals or withholds a will without reasonable cause may be jailed until it’s produced.

That person also owes damages to anyone harmed by the neglect or refusal.

If you’re also a beneficiary, a separate rule can cost you your gift.

A beneficiary who knows of the will and controls it loses the gift by intentionally withholding it, without reasonable cause, for a year after the death.

Neglecting to have the will offered for probate within that year, without reasonable cause, has the same result.

The gift then passes as if that beneficiary had died before your parent.

3. Two-Week Notice to Family

Once the court admits your parent’s will to probate, you have two weeks to give notice to the people it affects.

Two weeks goes fast.

The notice goes to the surviving spouse, to everyone who would inherit if there were no will, and to everyone who receives a gift under the will.

You then file a certificate proving you gave it, no later than two months after your appointment, unless the court grants an extension.

A late certificate leaves you open to citation and penalties under another section of the Revised Code.

Anyone who received the notice, or waived it, has three months after you file the certificate to contest the will in court.

4. Serving From Out of State

Living in another state doesn’t keep you from serving as executor of your parent’s will, as long as you’re related to your parent by blood or marriage.

If you’re a child who moved away, you qualify as long as the will names you.

The court can’t refuse to appoint you, or remove you, only because you live out of state.

It can require that your parent’s assets in the county stay there until you distribute them or the court says they can leave.

A friend named in the will, rather than a relative, qualifies only if the friend’s home state allows unrelated nonresidents to serve as executors.

5. Three-Month Inventory

As executor, you owe the probate court an inventory within three months of your appointment, unless the court grants more time for good cause.

The inventory covers your parent’s real estate plus personal property of every kind that’s going through probate.

You list values as of the date of death, not today’s values.

An asset with a readily ascertainable value doesn’t need an appraisal, but it still goes on the inventory.

6. Six-Month Creditor Window

The six-month creditor window you manage as executor runs from your parent's death, not from the day you're appointed.

Ohio law generally bars late claims as to everyone, including the people who inherit.

One exception is Medicaid estate recovery, which has until at least a year after the death to present its claim.

Once a claim reaches you, in many cases you have 30 days to allow or reject it.

If you distribute assets before the six months end, the account you give each beneficiary has to carry a warning.

It tells them they may have to return the value of their share if a valid claim shows up later.

7. Executor Fee Formula

You're allowed a fee as executor, and the amount follows a formula in the Revised Code.

The formula allows 4% of the first $100,000 in personal property, including its income, that you receive and account for.

Proceeds from real estate you sell count toward that base too.

The rate is 3% on everything above $100,000, up to $400,000, and 2% above that.

Real estate you don't sell adds a 1% fee based on its value.

The court can deny or reduce your fee after a hearing if it finds you haven't faithfully done the job.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says you must include those fees in your gross income.

If you're not in the business of being an executor, you report the fees on Schedule 1 of Form 1040.

8. Court Accounting Schedule

Ohio law sets the schedule on which you, as executor, report to the probate court.

Within six months of your appointment, you file a final and distributive account unless an exception applies.

Exceptions include a will contest, a surviving spouse electing against the will, and you being a party in a civil lawsuit.

When an exception applies, you file an account no later than 13 months after appointment, then at least once a year until the estate closes.

All heirs and beneficiaries can waive a partial account in writing, as long as none of them is under a legal disability.

If you're also the only heir and beneficiary, you can file a certificate of termination instead of a final account.

You file it within 30 days after finishing the administration, stating that debts are paid and assets are distributed to you.

Every account has to itemize what came in and what went out.

Keep your receipts.

9. Final and Estate Tax Returns

Your parent's taxes become your job as executor, starting with a final return for your parent and, depending on income, one for the estate.

The final federal return reports all of your parent's income up to the date of death.

Ohio's income tax law puts the state side on you too, since an executor files any Ohio return required of a deceased person.

Any Ohio return required of the estate itself falls to the fiduciary, which is also you.

The estate files federal Form 1041 if it earns more than $600 in gross income in a year.

Before you file, the estate needs a tax ID number, called an employer identification number (EIN).

The IRS also says an executor can file Form 5495 to request discharge from personal liability for a parent's income, gift and estate taxes.

The Debt Payment Order

You can't pay your parent's bills as executor in whatever order they arrive.

Ohio law sets a payment order for executors, and it starts with the costs of administering the estate.

Funeral expenses come next, up to $4,000 on the funeral director's bill plus up to $3,000 for burial and cemetery costs.

After those come the allowance for a surviving spouse or minor children, certain federal debts and the expenses of the last illness.

Several other classes follow, including the last nursing-home stay and Medicaid estate recovery, and ordinary creditors whose claims were allowed come last.

If you pay one of these bills with personal money, Ohio law entitles you to reimbursement from the estate in line with that bill's priority.

Small Estates Released From Administration

A probate court can release small estates, which may save you from running a full administration as executor.

The court may release an estate whose assets total $35,000 or less.

It may do the same up to $100,000 when everything goes to a surviving spouse.

Any interested party can apply, including you.

Notice goes to the surviving spouse and heirs, and it runs in a local newspaper unless it's waived or found unnecessary.

If your parent left a will, it still has to be presented for probate.

If any of the estate's value isn't easy to pin down, an appraiser the applicant picks and the court approves sets the figure.

Estate Tax Repeal

Ohio's estate tax applies only to people who died before January 1, 2013, so you can leave it off your executor's to-do list.

If your parent died before then, House Bill 110 still means no Ohio estate tax is due on property first discovered after December 31, 2021.