Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Pennsylvania

5 Executors? That is a disaster waiting to happen.

The executor's fee is based on a percentage of assets - it generally depends on the size and complexity of the estate and goes down as the estate value goes up. 3% is average, but the PA courts have left it up to the Orphan's Court to decide and whatever they say goes as long as its reasonable. Here is a link to a chart: http://evans-legal.com/dan/estfees.html

Did all 5 executors do equal work or did one of them do more than the others? Assuming that all did equal work, the fee is going to be whatever percentage the fee works out to be divided among the 5 of you. If someone did more, then they should get a bigger piece of the commission. There is no way that each of you is going to be given 3%.

If all of you are also heirs of the estate, then I would consider waiving the fee unless there is some advantage to having the fee treated as a fee rather than an inheritance. For example, inheritance fees are taxed (inheritance taxes) but inheritances are not taxed by the IRS. However, if you earn income as an executor, there are no inheritance taxes but this would be reported as income to the IRS. So it may depend on your tax bracket and the amount on which you would be taxed as to whether you waive or not.

Caution - I am NOT a tax lawyer or CPA and you will want to ask either the estate lawyer or your CPA/tax lawyer about tax issues.

I don't understand your question about knowing the identity of the buyer. Who would you be requesting this from?

Wouldn't you know, as one of the executors, who the buyer was in the offer to purchase agreement? If there is no offer to purchase then the offer is worthless until its in writing and submitted to the executor of the estate. How else can you accept the offer?

Since there are 5 of you, either the offer is submitted to all five of you, or to one of you and the person who gets it would send copies to the others (you will all need to sign it) or to the estate lawyer and he/she would discuss it with you and again all would sign it.