Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in New York

Re: Time frame

7 months does seem a little long just to get your letters testamentary. But if your attorney encountered any problems locating or serving notice on any of the relatives, that could be the reason for the delay. If all relatives are easily located and willing to cooperate with the estate, then you may want to start looking for an attorney more in touch with your time-based needs.

Re: Time frame

There is no general rule regarding the lenghth of time required to complete the probate process; in most cases clients think it takes too long.

If all interested parties are adults and are easy to locate, the process, absent a contest, is quite swift. This could be from a week to a month.

It's hard to tell what your lawyer ran into but you are free to ask him. If you are the Executor, he works for you.

Re: Time frame

I agree that 7 months for the probate seems unusually long. Since there were no immediate family members (spouse, children, parents, siblings), it would be necessary to construct a family tree, to ascertain who would be next in line to inherit (even if not mentioned in the Will), as all relatives in equal standing are entitled to be notified of the pending probate, to be afforded an opportunity to timely contest the probate or cosent to it, as they desired. It may have taken some time to ascertain all interested parties and notify them and obtain their position/documents. Plus, there may be tax consequences of the estate to take into consideration. How fast all of this might actually have taken enters into the pot as to why it has taken so long. If all of the people involved were readily ascertained and available, the time delay is too long. Otherwise, it might be possible it did actually take that long to get the necessary information and paperwork.