Washington residents like you put time, effort and heart into your estate. You want to preserve it for your loved ones. You want to ensure it passes hands in a smooth and easy way. One of the best ways to guarantee this is by having a good estate personal representative.
But how do you know yours is a good one? What are some of the traits good personal representatives often have?
Professional skills of a personal representative
HuffPost discusses how to choose the right personal representative for your will. Many people default to looking at their own family members. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, most personal representatives of estates are immediate or close relatives to the deceased. But family members are not always the right call.
Your personal representative needs to have professional skills. They should have strong people skills and organizational abilities. It helps if they have held leadership roles before. It also helps if they are task and schedule oriented. They must be able to monitor themselves. Most of the work they must complete needs to get finished on their own time.
Speaking of time, they should have a lot of it. Probate is not a quick process. Your personal representative should understand they will spend years on this. It does not take up every waking moment of their day. But it will be a part of their life until the process comes to a close.
Do you share similar points of view?
Your personal representative should also see eye to eye with you on important topics. Do you share a moral code? Do you have similar life beliefs? You want your personal representative to represent you well. This means having similar points of view and priorities. Sometimes, a relative fits this bill. But that is not always the case. Keep that in mind when making your choice.
