This is the final post in our discussion about personal representatives’ duties under the Arizona Probate Code.  So far, we have looked at the duty to give notice, the duty to keep an inventory, and the duty to take possession of personal property where necessary.  Now we turn to a duty that should be obvious, but one that many personal representatives nevertheless have difficulty with, the duty to properly manage finances for the estate. While it sounds simple enough, managing estate finances can actually be very difficult in certain instances, and an Arizona probate lawyer can be quite helpful here. 

ALTCS Medicaid has very strict rules about the amount of resources you can have and still qualify for the benefit.  For instance, if you are single, you can have no more than $2,000 in non-exempt resources.  Despite this resource limit, however, you can qualify for the ALTCS benefit with the help of a Medicaid attorney even if you own a home, with certain limitations.  So long as the home is your primary place of residence, and that home is worth no more than $500,000, you can still qualify for Arizona Medicaid. You should be fully aware, however, that even though

If you are a personal representative, appointed to administer a probate estate under Arizona probate law, you are probably aware that you need to repay the decedent’s creditors.  In fact, to make sure that creditors are properly repaid, you have a duty under Arizona probate law to give notice to all creditors that you know exist, and to also publish notice if there are creditors that you cannot physically locate.  Rightfully so, Arizona probate law takes repayment of creditors quite seriously. Ideally, a probate estate has enough funds to not only repay creditors, but to also provide the decedent’s heirs

The Arizona probate court does not always supervise the probate process.  In fact, supervised administration is much less common than unsupervised administration.  Unsupervised administration is the usual way that probate estates are administered, so unless the will or the Arizona probate court says otherwise, every estate goes through probate without supervision.  Nevertheless, even in an unsupervised administration, any interested person can petition the court for supervised administration to protect his or her interest in the estate. Supervised administration is where the Arizona probate court formally supervises the estate’s administration.  Under a supervised administration, the court can order inventories, appraisals, and

We recently discussed the duty that AZ probate law imposes on personal representatives to give adequate notice.  As you can probably guess, this is but one of the many duties that personal representatives have under the Arizona Probate Code.  In addition to giving adequate notice, personal representatives must create an inventory of the probate estate to which they are appointed to oversee. Creating an inventory is sometimes more difficult than others, depending on the size of the estate and the types of assets that the decedent owned.  Regardless of the difficulty, however, personal representatives must make a good faith effort

An Arizona probate lawyer who understands AZ probate law can sit down with people and help them accomplish their life planning goals. Every plan should be tailor made with the Arizona Probate Code in mind so that people can divide and devise their assets exactly how they want.