Family members frequently spend their own money after someone dies.
One person may pay the funeral home. Another may pay insurance. Someone may cover utilities, taxes, cleanout costs or repairs because the estate does not yet have usable funds.
A common question follows: Can the estate reimburse those expenses?
Often, legitimate estate expenses can be reimbursed—but the nature of the expense and the documentation supporting it matter.
An estate has its own expenses
Depending on the circumstances, legitimate estate expenses may include funeral and burial expenses, probate filing expenses, property insurance, utilities needed to preserve estate property, real-estate taxes, reasonable maintenance, appraisal expenses, expenses associated with selling property, accounting fees, legal fees, and other reasonable costs of administration.
Whether a particular expense is properly chargeable to the estate depends on why it was incurred and the circumstances surrounding it.
Keep the paperwork from the beginning
This is one of the simplest pieces of estate-administration advice I can give.
If you advance money for an estate, keep the invoice, the receipt, proof of payment, the date paid and a short description of what the payment was for.
I frequently have to reconstruct these expenses months later when an estate is approaching a property sale, accounting or distribution. That job is much easier—and the reimbursement much easier to justify—when the records were preserved from the outset.
Reimbursement is not the same thing as inheritance
Suppose three children share an estate equally but one personally paid substantial legitimate costs of preserving the parent's property. Simply dividing the remaining account balance into thirds without first analyzing the advance may cause that child to bear an expense that benefited the entire estate.
A legitimate reimbursement should therefore be evaluated separately from the beneficiary's distributive share.
Not every family expense belongs to the estate
The fact that somebody spent money after the death does not automatically entitle that person to repayment. An expense may require additional scrutiny if it primarily benefited one beneficiary, was unnecessary or excessive, was incurred without authority, substantially improved rather than preserved property, or cannot be documented.
Address reimbursements before calculating final distributions
The proper time to identify these issues is before the estate has been emptied.
Read: I Paid My Parent's Funeral and House Expenses—Can the Estate Reimburse Me?
Read: Can an Executor Distribute an Estate Before Probate Is Finished?
Speak with a Rhode Island probate attorney
Attorney Mark C. Hamer assists executors, administrators and families with probate and estate administration throughout Rhode Island from his Providence office.
Learn more about Probate & Estate Administration or contact Mark to discuss the circumstances of an estate.
Official sources
- Rhode Island General Laws, Title 33 — Probate Practice and Procedure
- Rhode Island Secretary of State — Probate Forms
This article provides general information only and is not legal advice.