Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

How can you renounce as administrator but not executor?

An executor is a person named in a will that is submitted for probate. If the named executor is unable/unwilling to serve, then he/she files a renunciation and any back-up executor named in the will takes over. If there is no-back-up named in the will then anyone can apply for the job but the courts call the person the administrator cta (cum testamento annexo - which is a latin phrase meaning "with the will annexed.").

If there is no will then there is no executor. Any person can apply to be administrator of the estate within the degrees of preference outlined by the intestacy statutes.

So were you an executor or administrator? Its got to be one or the other; it cannot be both. If you were the named executor and you renounced in favor of your co-executor who later died then you would have to re-apply to be administrator.

Which kind of begs the question here - just what the heck is going on? An estate takes 1-2 years to complete unless the estate is unduly complicated but even then they are not open for 9 years. So if you were appointed initially prior to 2005 then the estate should be completed by now. If the co-executor who died was not doing her job the clerk of court would have removed her a long long time ago and appointed a public administrator to wrap this up.

If for some reason this was not done, then no one here knows what they are doing and it is obvious that no lawyer was involved because this is inexcusable. I would suggest that you get a probate attorney who practices in the county where the estate of the deceased is pending, get a copy of the estate file and take it to the attorney and pay him or her to review and see what exactly needs done here to get this wrapped up.