Why this document matters more than it looks

An accounting is the executor's statement of what came in, what went out, and what is left. It is also, in practice, the last moment at which anyone can ask a question about the administration.

In Florida, discharge of the personal representative releases them and bars any action against them — as representative, individually, and against the surety. That is not a formality closing a file. It is the end of the beneficiaries' ability to bring a claim.4

So the instinct to sign whatever ends it fastest is the expensive instinct. Reading carefully costs a week. Not reading costs the ability to ask at all.

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Sahvelo gives information drawn from statutes, agency guidance and official forms. It is not legal advice for your particular situation. Terms & disclaimer.

What a complete accounting contains

California sets this out more precisely than most, and the categories are a workable checklist anywhere: an account should state the period it covers and account for everything that moved.1

  • Property on hand at the beginning of the period — for a first account, the value of the property the fiduciary initially received.
  • Assets received during the period that were not on hand at the start.
  • Receipts of income or principal.
  • Net income, or net loss, from any trade or business.
  • Gains and losses on sales.
  • Disbursements.
  • Distributions to beneficiaries.
  • Property on hand at the end, stated at its carry value.1

California goes further and prescribes the layout — charges on one side, credits on the other, in a format substantially the same as the one printed in the code. That is what makes the test objective rather than a matter of opinion: an account that omits a required category, or that does not balance, is deficient on its face.1

The other half is liabilities, and it is the half beneficiaries most often do not know to look for. A California account must state whether notice to creditors was given, every claim filed with its date, claimant, amount and outcome, and every claim not paid — whether it is due, whether it was rejected, whether the creditor has sued, and what property secures it.2

That last part is what tells you whether a distribution is safe to accept. Money distributed out of an estate that still owes a secured or unresolved claim can come back as a problem, and the accounting is where that risk is visible.2

If you are in Florida and chapter 733 seems to say nothing about what an accounting must contain, that is because the requirement is in the probate rules instead. Rule 5.346 sets one standard worth quoting back at an accounting you cannot follow: it must be “stated in a manner that is understandable to persons who are not familiar with practices and terminology peculiar to the administration of estates and trusts”, and must begin with a concise summary of its purpose and content. The closing schedule of assets has to carry two values — what the asset was taken in at, and what it is estimated to be worth now — with gains and losses shown separately, so a house that fell in value cannot be quietly netted off.•

How to read one in an afternoon

  1. Check that it balances. Charges — what the estate started with plus everything received — must equal credits, which is everything paid out plus what remains. If it does not balance, stop there and ask why.
  2. Compare the opening figure to the inventory. The first account should open with the value of what the fiduciary actually received; a gap between the inventory and the opening balance is the first thing to query.
  3. Read the disbursements line by line. Fees to the executor, fees to professionals, and anything paid to a person rather than an institution are where questions usually belong.
  4. Look for what is missing rather than what is wrong. An asset in the inventory that appears in no sale, no distribution and no closing balance is a frequent real problem.
  5. Read the liabilities section last and hardest. Unpaid claims, rejected claims and secured claims are what decide whether the distribution you are being offered is final.
  6. Ask in writing, and date it. If you intend to question anything, the record of when you raised it matters more than how politely you put it.

Do not sign a receipt, waiver or consent to discharge while a question is outstanding. Those documents are usually what converts an open administration into a closed one, and they are frequently sent in the same envelope as the accounting. In Florida discharge bars any action against the personal representative afterwards. In New York the release does two things at once: it discharges the executor and the sureties on the bond from further liability, and it takes you off the list of people the court's process has to reach at all.4116

The line that is the executor's own fee

Every accounting contains one charge the person who wrote it decided on: their own compensation. It is a proper expense of the estate — the work is real and most states pay for it — but it comes out of what the beneficiaries receive, and it is the item most worth understanding before you accept or object to the account.

The states Sahvelo has read take several different approaches, and the difference is not really the rates. It is who decides, and when. Arizona sets no scale at all and lets the personal representative determine a reasonable figure for their own services, subject to review. California prints a formula. Florida lets the executor take the commission from the estate without a court order, with the percentages presumed reasonable. New York allows commissions only when the court settles the account, so the money moves last rather than first.

Two things enlarge a fee without anybody raising the rate. California computes it on the appraised value of the estate accounted for, without deducting mortgages or other debts secured on the property — so a heavily mortgaged house is counted at its full value. Florida's base includes the income the estate earned during the administration, so a slow administration of an income-producing estate pays more.

Co-executors are where the states diverge most sharply. California apportions a single fee between them by the work each actually did. New York, once the gross principal accounted for is large enough, gives each of up to three fiduciaries the full commission a sole fiduciary would have received. The same will, drafted the same way, costs a New York estate three fees and a California estate one.

If the figure looks wrong, the question to ask is what work it represents rather than what percentage it is. In Arizona any interested person may petition for review of the fee — including the executor's own, and including fees already paid, which the court may order refunded. Elsewhere the fee is examined as part of the account itself, on the timetable in the table below.

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The other fee: what the estate's lawyer is charging

The executor's commission is the fee people look for. The estate lawyer's fee is usually the larger of the two, and it is a separate line governed by separate rules. In most estates nobody asks about it, because it looks like a professional bill rather than a distribution of the estate. It is both.

Florida is the clearest illustration of why asking is reasonable. The statute prints a fee schedule and then spends most of its length undercutting the idea that the schedule is compulsory — by requiring the lawyer to say so, in writing, to the executor.•

What a Florida estate lawyer must disclose in writing before charging on the schedule
The disclosureWhy it is there
There is no mandatory statutory attorney fee for estate administration.The schedule is a presumption of reasonableness, not a price. Executors routinely believe it is a price.
The fee need not be based on the size of the estate.A large estate is not automatically a complicated one. A house, a bank account and one beneficiary is the same work at a fifth of a million as at two million.
The fee is subject to negotiation.It is a term, not a tariff — and the executor is the person who negotiates it, on the beneficiaries' behalf as much as their own.
The executor chooses the lawyer, and need not use the one who wrote the will.This is the disclosure that most often surprises a family. The will-drafting firm has no claim on the administration.
The executor is entitled to a summary of services at the end — total hours, or a detailed summary of the work.Without it there is no way to test the fee against the work, and no way to object to it usefully.

The disclosures are not advisory. A Florida attorney who does not make them may not be paid for legal services without prior court approval of the fees, or the written consent of all interested parties. If you are an interested party being asked to consent to fees, that request may be the consequence of a missed disclosure rather than a courtesy.•

New York runs the opposite way and is the most useful state to be in if the legal fees look wrong. The Surrogate's Court may fix and determine an attorney's compensation at any time during the administration, whether or not any proceeding is pending — so a beneficiary does not have to wait for the final accounting to raise it. If the lawyer has already been paid more than the fair value of the services, the court may direct them to refund the excess. The same section lets the court charge a fee against one beneficiary's share rather than the estate generally, which cuts both ways.•

California splits the fee in two and makes the second half visible. The ordinary fee is on the statutory schedule; anything beyond it is extraordinary compensation, allowed by the court in an amount it finds just and reasonable. A petition for extraordinary compensation has to set out the hours spent and the services performed by any paralegal, so the work is itemized rather than presented as one number. A contingent fee for extraordinary services binds the estate only after a noticed hearing and a finding that the arrangement is to the estate's advantage — the executor cannot agree to one alone.•

The executor's own compensation has the same two-part shape in California, and it is worth reading the two lines together. The schedule produces the ordinary commission by arithmetic; a court may allow additional compensation for extraordinary services in an amount it determines is just and reasonable, on no schedule at all. Tax counsel, auditors and accountants retained for the estate's tax work are paid from estate funds besides, so they reduce what beneficiaries receive without appearing on the fee ladder anywhere.•

If you object: the second deadline, and what objecting costs

Most guidance on objecting to an accounting stops at the filing deadline. Two things happen after it that decide whether the objection is worth making, and neither is obvious from the deadline itself.

In Florida, filing the objection is not the last thing you have to do

A Florida objection must be filed within thirty days of service of the later of the petition for discharge or the final accounting. Then a second clock starts and nobody announces it: if a notice of hearing on the objection is not served within ninety days of filing, the objection is deemed abandoned and the personal representative may distribute according to the plan. The estate closes as though the objection had never been made. If you file one, put the notice of hearing in the calendar the same day.•

The objection also has to be specific. Florida requires it to state with particularity the items objected to and the grounds — an objection that says the accounting is unsatisfactory gives the court nothing to sustain. The same requirement is repeated in the petition for discharge itself, which must warn the reader of both the thirty days and the ninety, so the document telling you the estate is closing is also the document telling you how to stop it.•

Who pays for the argument

This is the question that should be asked before the objection is drafted, and it has a different answer in each state Sahvelo has read.

Where the cost of a contested accounting lands
StateWho bears the legal cost
ArizonaThe estate, largely regardless of outcome. A personal representative who defends or prosecutes a proceeding in good faith is entitled to their necessary expenses and reasonable attorneys' fees from the estate whether successful or not. A beneficiary objecting is therefore part-funding the defense out of their own eventual share.
FloridaThe loser, by default. In any action for breach of fiduciary duty or challenging the exercise of a personal representative's powers, the court shall award taxable costs including attorney's fees — and may direct that they be paid out of a party's interest in the estate, or entered as a judgment satisfiable from their other property, or both.
New YorkDecided by the court, and it can be split. When the Surrogate's Court fixes an attorney's compensation it may direct payment from the estate generally or from the funds belonging to a particular beneficiary.

None of this is a reason to leave a real problem alone. It is a reason to know the size of what is in dispute before starting, and to put the concern to the executor in writing first — a question answered by letter costs nothing, and the answer is often the whole of it. Where the answer does not come, or does not survive contact with the numbers, the formal route is still there and the deadline is still running.

If the executor got it wrong: what can actually be recovered

An objection is a procedure. A surcharge is the remedy at the end of it — an order that the executor personally make good what the estate lost. The word does not appear on most court forms, but it is what a sustained objection to an accounting is usually seeking.

Several of the states read here borrow the standard rather than writing one. Arizona provides that where the exercise of a power concerning the estate is improper, the personal representative is liable to interested persons for damage or loss resulting from the breach of fiduciary duty to the same extent as a trustee of an express trust. Florida says the same thing from the other direction: a personal representative's fiduciary duty is the same as a trustee's, and they are liable to interested persons for damage or loss resulting from breaching it.••

California writes the remedy out, and the detail matters where the estate did not obviously lose money. A representative who breaches a fiduciary duty is chargeable with any loss or depreciation in the estate's value resulting from the breach, with interest; with any profit they made through the breach, with interest; and with any profit that would have accrued to the estate had the breach not cost it. So an executor who bought estate property cheaply, or who held an asset that should have been sold, can be reached even though the balance sheet never fell.•

There is a defense, and it is the reason a mistake is not automatically a surcharge. California allows the court, in its discretion, to excuse a personal representative in whole or in part where they acted reasonably and in good faith under the circumstances as known to them, if it would be equitable to do so. The test looks at what the executor knew at the time, not at how it turned out. A decision that looks poor with hindsight and a breach of duty are different things, and the distinction is usually where a contested accounting is actually decided.•

One boundary is worth knowing before an objection is framed around a particular transaction. Arizona expressly leaves the rights of purchasers and others who dealt with the personal representative to be determined under separate sections, so a stranger who bought estate property in good faith is generally protected even where the sale was a breach. The remedy runs against the executor, not against the buyer — which means an objection needs a loss attached to it, not only a transaction that should not have happened.•

Closing without an accounting at all

Most estates never produce a contested accounting, because the beneficiaries sign a waiver of accounting. That is a legitimate and often sensible choice — a formal account costs the estate money, and where everyone can already see what happened it buys nothing. It is worth knowing what the waiver does and does not give up.

In California, no account is required if each person entitled to distribution has filed a written waiver, or a written acknowledgment that their interest has been satisfied. But two things survive it. The personal representative must still file a final report of administration at the time the account would have been due, and that report must state the compensation paid or payable to the representative and to the attorney, and the basis for determining the amounts — so even a fully waived California estate produces a document naming the fees. And a creditor whose interest has not been satisfied may still petition for an account.•

Read a waiver before signing it, and check that it names a number. Florida requires a waiver to state expressly what is being waived, and where compensation is involved, to declare that the signer has actual knowledge of the amount and of the manner in which it was determined — and then either that they agree to it and waive any objection to payment, or that they have the right to ask the court to determine compensation and waive that right. A form that waives an accounting without ever saying what the executor and the lawyer are taking has not met that requirement.•

Arizona reaches the same place by a different route: an unsupervised personal representative closes the estate by filing a verified statement no earlier than four months after appointment, and the statement must confirm that a full written account has gone to every distributee whose interests are affected. There is no court approval, so the account beneficiaries receive is the only account there will be. New York has the quiet route as well — where every person who would have to be served signs an acknowledged instrument approving the account and releasing the fiduciary, the court may decree a discharge with no contested settlement at all.311

The common thread is that a waiver is worth what the information behind it is worth. Signing one after reading a clear informal account is a reasonable saving. Signing one because it arrived with a stamped envelope is giving up the last opportunity to ask, and in Florida discharge then bars any action against the representative and the surety entirely.4

If no accounting ever arrives

Most of this page assumes an accounting has been sent to you. The commoner complaint is that none has, that months have passed, and that asking produces either silence or an assurance that it is all in hand.

Separate two things before doing anything. An estate that is genuinely not finished is not a wrong: New York will not let a fiduciary settle an account until the published claims period has expired or seven months have run from the grant of letters, and other states have their own waiting periods, so a demand in month three is asking for something the law does not yet permit. What is not normal is a refusal to say where things stand after that point.

Where the estate is in New York there is a specific answer, and it does not depend on the executor's cooperation. The Surrogate's Court may order a fiduciary to file an intermediate or a final account on the petition of a creditor, of any person interested, of someone acting for a minor, or of the surety on the executor's bond. If the order is ignored the court can suspend the letters, appoint a successor immediately, and take and state the account itself notwithstanding the fiduciary's refusal to file one.

The surety is the underused route. Where a bond was posted, the bonding company can itself petition to compel the account — and it has both the standing and the motive, because it is the one that pays if the estate has been mishandled. A letter to the surety costs nothing and does not require a lawyer.

Sahvelo has read the compulsory-accounting provisions at source for New York only. In Arizona, California and Florida the courts have equivalent supervisory powers, but the procedure and who may invoke it are not stated here — ask the court in the county of administration what a beneficiary files to compel an account.

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What changes where you live

How an estate closes, and how long a beneficiary has, differ in ways that decide whether reading the accounting late is inconvenient or fatal.

How does the estate close?

The answer in 8 states

Are you entitled to a written account?

The answer in 8 states

  • Arizona

    Yes. The closing statement must certify that the representative has sent a copy to all distributees and to known unpaid creditors, and has furnished a full account in writing. It is an entitlement, not a courtesy.3

  • California

    Yes, and to one that meets a prescribed standard — the period covered, ten named categories, a charges-and-credits summary in a prescribed format, and a full statement of liabilities.12

  • Florida

    Yes, and the requirements are in the probate rules rather than the statute, which is why chapter 733 looks silent. Rule 5.346 requires every cash and property transaction since the last accounting (or since administration began), a schedule of assets at the end of the period carrying two values — acquisition or carrying value, and estimated current value — with gains and losses shown separately, and the whole thing verified by the fiduciary. The rule also sets a readability standard: an accounting must be stated so that somebody unfamiliar with estate terminology can follow it, and must begin with a concise summary of its purpose and content.•

  • New Jersey

    Yes, but by suing rather than by asking, and generally not in the first year. The personal representative may settle an account, or be required to settle one, in the Superior Court — not before the surrogate, which takes the paperwork of an ordinary estate rather than a contested accounting. And unless special cause is shown, an executor cannot be required to account until a year after appointment, so a beneficiary who wants one sooner has to show something about this estate rather than impatience with it.19

  • New York

    Yes, and New York goes further than the other three: you do not have to wait to be given one. A creditor, a person interested, or even the surety on the executor's bond may petition the court to compel an intermediate or a final account, and the court can suspend the fiduciary's letters, appoint a successor immediately and state the account itself if the fiduciary still will not. Whatever is filed carries a sworn affidavit that it is complete and that the executor knows of no error or omission prejudicing a creditor or a beneficiary.9107

  • North Carolina

    Anyone interested, and they do not have to ask the executor. Accounts are filed with the clerk of superior court and recorded there, annually while the estate is open as well as at the end. Where the representative fails to account, or renders an unsatisfactory account, the clerk shall — on the clerk's own motion, or at the request of one or more creditors of the decedent or any other interested party — order a full satisfactory account within twenty days after service of the order. Note that creditors are named alongside beneficiaries as people who can trigger this.•

  • Pennsylvania

    Yes, and you can force it. Six months after the first complete advertisement of the grant of letters, a personal representative may be cited to file an account — and the court may direct one at any time, without waiting for that date. You do not have to wait for the executor to volunteer. When an account is filed you are entitled to written notice of the filing and of its call for audit or confirmation, and the statute's list of who must be notified is wide: every person known to have or assert an interest as beneficiary, heir, next of kin or claimant. Two things forfeit that notice. Having your interest satisfied already, and failing to answer a written demand the executor is entitled to serve on a suspected claimant.••

  • Texas

    Yes, and you do not need a lawyer or a filing to start. Fifteen months after letters were first issued, any person interested in the estate may demand an accounting directly from the independent executor. What must come back is prescribed, not left to the executor: a written exhibit, sworn and subscribed, detailing the property received, what became of it, debts paid, debts still owing, what remains — and the facts, if any, showing why the administration should not be closed and the estate distributed. If nothing arrives within 60 days you may compel it by action in the probate court, and the court shall order the accounting, exercising discretion only over when. It repeats at intervals of not less than 12 months, and one family member's exhibit must be given to any other interested person who asks. Failure to make an accounting required by law is also a ground on which the court may remove the executor — may, not must, and only after personal service. Before 15 months have run this particular right has not arrived.•••

How long do you have to raise something?

The answer in 8 states

What is the executor paid, and who decides?

The rate matters less than who sets it and when it is paid.

The answer in 8 states

  • Arizona

    Reasonable compensation, with no statutory scale. The personal representative determines it for their own services in the first instance. Any interested person may then petition the court to review it — and to review what anyone the representative employed was paid — with power to order a refund of excessive compensation already taken. A representative may also renounce the fee, and a written renunciation can be filed with the court.1213

  • California

    A statutory formula for ordinary services: 4 percent of the first hundred thousand dollars, 3 percent of the next hundred thousand, 2 percent of the next eight hundred thousand, 1 percent of the next nine million, then a half percent — computed on the value accounted for, without deducting mortgages or other obligations secured on estate property. Where there are two or more representatives, the court apportions that one fee between them by the services each actually rendered.1415

  • Florida

    A commission payable from estate assets without a court order, presumed reasonable at 3 percent of the first million, 2.5 percent to five million, 2 percent to ten million and 1.5 percent above that — on a base that includes the income the estate earned during administration. Extraordinary services, such as selling real property, running the decedent's business or conducting litigation, are compensated further and separately. The presumption can be rebutted, but the money will usually have moved first.16

  • New Jersey

    A statutory schedule on corpus, taken rather than applied for: five per cent of the first two hundred thousand dollars of corpus received, three and a half per cent on the excess up to a million, two per cent above that, and one per cent of all corpus for each additional fiduciary — capped so that no one fiduciary does better than they would have alone. The reduction route is deliberately narrow. A court may cut it only on the application of a beneficiary adversely affected, and only on an affirmative showing that the services were materially deficient or that the actual pains, trouble and risk were substantially less than generally required for an estate of comparable size. Thinking the fee is large is not one of those. This is the corpus commission; income commissions are set separately in the same chapter and Sahvelo has not read them.21

  • New York

    Commissions the court must allow when it settles the account, so nothing is paid until the accounting is done: 5 percent of the first hundred thousand dollars, 4 percent of the next two hundred thousand, 3 percent of the next seven hundred thousand, 2.5 percent of the next four million, then 2 percent. Property delivered in kind counts as money in the computation, but a specific legacy or devise does not. And where the gross principal accounted for reaches three hundred thousand dollars, each fiduciary — up to three — is entitled to a full commission rather than a share of one.17

  • North Carolina

    Up to five per cent, fixed by the clerk of superior court rather than claimed by the representative — calculated on the amounts of receipts, including the value of all personal property when received, and on the expenditures made in accordance with law. The clerk may take into account what the estate has already paid attorneys and accountants, though the section says the clerk need not reduce the maximum dollar for dollar against those fees. Where the gross estate is two thousand dollars or less the clerk may simply fix whatever is just and adequate. Texas states the same percentage as an entitlement and then hollows it out with exclusions; North Carolina makes it a discretionary ceiling from the start.•

  • Pennsylvania

    There is no schedule, and no percentage you can look up. Pennsylvania leaves it to the judge in one sentence: the court shall allow such compensation as shall in the circumstances be reasonable and just, and may calculate it on a graduated percentage. Graduated percentages are permitted, not prescribed — so a figure quoted as "the Pennsylvania executor fee" is somebody's custom, not the statute. What a particular county's judges customarily allow is not something Sahvelo has verified, and an executor who wants certainty before taking the money should ask for the compensation to be passed on with the account rather than paying themselves and defending it later.•

  • Texas

    Five percent of amounts actually received or paid out in cash, capped at five percent of the gross fair market value of the estate subject to administration — and the exclusions remove most of an ordinary estate from the base. No commission is allowed on cash already sitting in the deceased's bank or brokerage accounts at the death, on life insurance proceeds, or on cash paid out to an heir or legatee as such. Where that is inadequate the court may instead allow reasonable compensation, including for unusual efforts, and that one does require going to the court. It reaches an independent executor as well as a supervised one, which matters because nearly every Texas estate is independent — the chapter says so by providing for the court to deny a commission to a representative removed under the independent-administration removal section. And because an independent executor may do without a court order anything a supervised one could do with or without one, the commission is taken rather than applied for: the court's involvement is the power to deny or reduce it afterwards, on an interested person's application or its own motion, where the property was not managed prudently. Expenses and attorney's fees run differently and do need proof satisfactory to the court.••

What is the estate's lawyer paid, and can it be questioned?

The answer in 8 states

  • Arizona

    No fee schedule, and one provision that changes the arithmetic of complaining: a personal representative who defends or prosecutes a proceeding in good faith is entitled to their necessary expenses and reasonable attorneys' fees from the estate whether they win or lose. A beneficiary who challenges an Arizona executor is therefore part-funding the defense from their own eventual share.•

  • California

    An ordinary fee on the statutory schedule, plus extraordinary compensation the court may allow as just and reasonable. The petition for extraordinary compensation has to set out the hours spent and services performed by any paralegal, so the breakdown is visible rather than aggregated. A contingent fee for extraordinary services binds the estate only after a noticed hearing and a finding that it is to the estate's advantage.•

  • Florida

    Reasonable compensation from estate assets without a court order — but an attorney intending to charge on the statutory schedule must first disclose in writing that there is no mandatory statutory fee, that it need not be based on the size of the estate, that it is negotiable, and that the executor need not use the lawyer who wrote the will. Skip those disclosures and the attorney cannot be paid without court approval or the written consent of every interested party.•

  • New Jersey

    Not established. New Jersey fixes what an estate's lawyer may be allowed by court rule rather than by statute — R. 4:42-9 — and www.njcourts.gov is a host that refuses automated retrieval, recorded in content/retrieval-blockers.json. So there is no Tier 1 route to the text and Sahvelo states none. That is an absence in Sahvelo's retrieval rather than a statement about New Jersey law: ask the surrogate's office or the estate's own lawyer for the rule, and expect the answer to be that the fee is allowed by the court rather than charged at will.19

  • New York

    Fixed by the Surrogate's Court, and — unusually — at any time during the administration, whether or not a proceeding is pending. A beneficiary can petition without waiting for the final accounting. If the lawyer has already been paid more than the fair value of the services, the court may direct them to refund the excess. The court may also charge a fee against one beneficiary's share rather than against the estate generally.•

  • North Carolina

    The clerk of superior court may allow counsel fees to an attorney who is serving as the personal representative, in addition to the commission — but only for professional services beyond the ordinary routine of administration, of a type that would reasonably justify a non-lawyer executor in hiring counsel. Filing the inventory, paying claims and distributing assets are the routine, and an attorney-executor doing them is doing the executor's job at the executor's rate.•

  • Pennsylvania

    One sentence: the court allows such compensation as is reasonable and just in the circumstances, and may calculate it on a graduated percentage. The percentage tables that circulate in Pennsylvania practice are something the court may use, not something the statute prescribes — which is close to the opposite of how they are usually presented. Sahvelo has read the compensation section and has not located a separate Pennsylvania provision fixing the estate attorney's fee; the same reasonableness review is what applies.•

  • Texas

    No schedule and no percentage. Necessary and reasonable expenses, and reasonable attorney's fees necessarily incurred in connection with the proceedings and management of the estate, allowed on proof satisfactory to the court. Necessarily incurred is the harder half of that test — a fee can be a fair price for work that did not need doing. In a will fight the estate may end up funding both sides: the executor defending the will is allowed fees whether or not successful, while a contestant is allowed them only if they succeed.••

Sahvelo has read all eight of these states at their own sources. Another state's rule may differ, and we would rather say that than generalize.

Questions people ask about this

  • The numbers do not add up. What do I do?

    Say so in writing, dated, before you sign anything. An account is supposed to balance: what the estate began with plus everything received must equal everything paid out plus what remains. In California the required categories and the charges-and-credits format are prescribed by statute, so an account that omits a category or does not balance is deficient on its face rather than as a matter of opinion. Ask for the schedules behind the summary — the detail sits there, and most apparent gaps resolve into a missing schedule rather than a missing asset.1

  • They have sent a receipt and waiver to sign along with the accounting.

    Do not sign it while you have an unanswered question. Those documents are usually what closes the administration, and they very often arrive in the same envelope as the accounting they are supposed to follow. In Florida, discharge bars any action against the personal representative afterwards — as representative, personally, and against the surety. New York is the same bargain made explicit: the decree that follows everyone signing releases the executor and the sureties on the bond from further liability, and a beneficiary who has signed an acknowledged release is no longer someone the court's process has to reach. You also give up the right to examine the executor under oath and take document discovery, which in New York is available before you object and not only after. None of that makes signing wrong — most estates are honest and the alternative is cost and delay — but read first, ask in writing, and sign when the questions are answered.41168

  • The Arizona executor filed a closing statement months ago. Am I too late?

    Probably not, if it is within a year. Arizona provides that the appointment terminates if no proceedings involving the personal representative are pending one year after the closing statement was filed — so the year following that filing is the window. You were also entitled to receive a copy of the statement and a full written account; if neither arrived, that itself is worth raising. Check the court file for the filing date rather than relying on when you were told.3

  • What should I look for in the liabilities section?

    Whether notice to creditors was given, every claim that was filed and what happened to it, and above all the claims that were not paid. For each of those a California account must show whether it is due, whether a rejection notice was given, whether the creditor has sued, and what property secures it. That is what tells you whether the distribution you are being offered is really final — money paid out of an estate that still owes a secured or unresolved claim can come back as a problem later.2

  • The executor has paid themselves. Can I question that?

    Yes, and the accounting is where to do it, because compensation appears in the disbursements. Sahvelo has not yet verified how each state sets or reviews executor compensation, so what it can tell you is procedural rather than substantive: ask, in writing and before discharge, for the basis on which the fee was calculated and the time or value it reflects. A fee that is reasonable will survive the question, and after discharge the question cannot be asked at all.

  • The executor in New York has gone quiet and we have never seen an accounting.

    You can make the court ask. New York lets the Surrogate's Court order a fiduciary to file an intermediate or a final account on the petition of a creditor, of any person interested in the estate, of someone acting for a minor, of a cofiduciary, or of the surety on the executor's bond. If the executor ignores the order the court can suspend their letters, appoint someone eligible to succeed them immediately, and take and state the account itself notwithstanding the refusal to file one. Before starting, check the calendar: a fiduciary cannot settle an account until the published claims period has expired or seven months have run since letters were issued, so silence in month four is not yet the same problem as silence in month fourteen. And consider writing to the bonding company first if a bond was posted — the surety can compel the account in its own right and has every reason to.9105

  • I do not understand the New York account well enough to object to it. Do I have to object first?

    No, and this is the most useful thing in New York's accounting article. Any party to the proceeding may examine the executor under oath about any matter relating to the administration of the estate, and may do so before filing objections as well as after. The same right carries full document discovery under article 31 of the CPLR either way — bank statements, the file on the sale of the house, the invoices behind a line of expenses. So the sequence is look, then decide. Ask for the examination and the documents, read what comes back, and object only if what you find warrants it. Bear in mind that the account itself was sworn: the executor's affidavit says there is no error or omission in it that prejudices a creditor or a beneficiary.87

  • The executor has paid himself a fee out of the estate. Can he do that?

    It depends where you are. In Florida, yes — the commission is payable from estate assets without a court order, and the statutory percentages are presumed reasonable. In Arizona there is no scale, the representative sets a reasonable figure for their own services, and any interested person can petition the court to review it and order a refund of anything excessive. In California the amount for ordinary services is fixed by formula rather than by choice. In New York commissions are allowed by the court when it settles the account, so a fee taken before that has not been allowed by anyone. In every case the fee should appear as its own line in the accounting; if it does not, that is the first question to ask.12131617

Where this sits in the process

Before this

These produce something this topic needs.

Related

  • Debts and creditorsthe liabilities section is where unresolved claims become visible
  • Taxesthe estate's returns have to be settled before it can close
  • Trusts after a deatha trustee's duty to account runs on different rules and a different clock
  • Do I need probate?whether there is a formal accounting at all depends on the route taken
  • Personal propertycontents distributed informally still belong in the account

Sources

Each state's own statute on what an account must contain and how an estate closes.

  1. California Probate Code §1061 — required contents and format of a fiduciary account

    California: the ten categories every account must summarize, and the prescribed charges-and-credits format.

    leginfo.legislature.ca.gov Checked 2026-08-12

  2. California Probate Code §10900 — the account's report of administration and statement of liabilities

    California: the report of administration and the statement of liabilities, including unpaid and secured claims.

    leginfo.legislature.ca.gov Checked 2026-08-12

  3. A.R.S. §14-3933 (Closing estates; statement of personal representative) — Arizona State Legislature

    Arizona: closing by verified statement, the entitlement to a full written account, and the one-year termination.

    azleg.gov Checked 2026-08-12

  4. Fla. Stat. §733.901 (Final discharge) — The Florida Senate

    Florida: that discharge bars any action against the personal representative and the surety.

    flsenate.gov Checked 2026-08-12

  5. N.Y. SCPA §2208 — voluntary account; who may petition

    New York: the seven-month earliest date, and how an estate is settled.

    nysenate.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  6. N.Y. SCPA §2210 — voluntary account; process

    New York: who must be served, and the release that takes you off the list.

    nysenate.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  7. N.Y. SCPA §2209 — affidavit to account

    New York: the sworn affidavit appended to every account.

    nysenate.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  8. N.Y. SCPA §2211 — voluntary account; proceedings thereupon

    New York: examination under oath and discovery, before objecting or after.

    nysenate.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  9. N.Y. SCPA §2205 — compulsory account and related relief; who may petition

    New York: who may compel an account, the surety included.

    nysenate.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  10. N.Y. SCPA §2206 — compulsory account; proceedings thereupon

    New York: what the court does when the executor still will not file.

    nysenate.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  11. N.Y. SCPA §2203 — decree on filing instruments approving accounts

    New York: the all-signatures route, and what the release discharges.

    nysenate.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  12. A.R.S. §14-3719 — compensation of personal representative

    Arizona: reasonable compensation, no scale, and renunciation of a fee.

    azleg.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  13. A.R.S. §14-3721 — review of employment of agents and compensation

    Arizona: who may seek review of a fee, what it reaches, and the power to order a refund.

    azleg.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  14. Cal. Prob. Code §10800 — compensation for ordinary services, and the value it is computed on

    California: the statutory ladder, and the gross base that ignores encumbrances.

    leginfo.legislature.ca.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  15. Cal. Prob. Code §10805 — apportionment where there are two or more personal representatives

    California: one fee apportioned between co-representatives.

    leginfo.legislature.ca.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  16. Fla. Stat. §733.617(1)–(3) — commission without court order, the presumed rates, and extraordinary services

    Florida: commission without court order, the presumed rates, and extraordinary services.

    flsenate.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  17. N.Y. SCPA §2307 — commissions of fiduciaries other than trustees

    New York: commissions allowed on settlement, and a full commission for each of up to three fiduciaries.

    nysenate.gov Checked 2026-08-13

  18. N.J.S.A. 3B:23-24 (Refunding bond of devisee or distributee)

    New Jersey's refunding bond, and that taking one is a duty.

    lis.njleg.state.nj.us Checked 2026-08-20

  19. N.J.S.A. 3B:17-2 (Accounts of personal representatives)

    New Jersey's accounting action, and the one-year rule on compelling it.

    lis.njleg.state.nj.us Checked 2026-08-20

  20. N.J.S.A. 3B:17-8 (Effect of judgment allowing account)

    What a New Jersey judgment allowing an account forecloses, and the three things it does not.

    lis.njleg.state.nj.us Checked 2026-08-20

  21. N.J.S.A. 3B:18-14 (Corpus commissions)

    New Jersey's corpus commission bands, and the narrow route to reducing them.

    lis.njleg.state.nj.us Checked 2026-08-20

Sources last reviewed 2026-08-12. Where a source is marked pending re-verification, the page says so wherever the claim appears.

The accounting requirements and closing provisions are quoted from each state's own statute. Florida's accounting-content requirements sit in the probate rules rather than the statute and Sahvelo has not verified them, so only the discharge provision is stated for Florida. The reading guidance in the middle section is judgment about how to examine a document, not law. Executor compensation is now answered for all four states from statute. Not covered: the procedure for filing an objection in each state, surcharge actions against a personal representative, extraordinary compensation and attorney fees, and informal accounting where beneficiaries waive.