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Administer deceased estates

Record an estate's facts and Squire™ lays out its administration as dated tasks, from reporting to the Master to distribution - each deadline moving with the key dates you record.

Administering a deceased estate is a long run of steps under the Administration of Estates Act, each with its own form, its own office and its own deadline - most of them counted from a date you only learn as the estate goes. Squire lays the administration out as the matter's tasks from what you know of the estate, and dates each one as the key dates arrive. Questions of a will's validity, heirship and disputes stay with the Master and the court.

On a deceased estate's Overview, Lay out the administration plan adds six phases of tasks and the next deadlines; the lawyer opens Key dates, enters the date letters were granted and saves; the deadlines counted from the letters join the list, each saying whether it is statutory, with its section, or a practice target.

How it works

  1. 1

    Open the estate's matter

    Choose the matter type Deceased Estates - and Testate or Intestate Estate if you know it - and record what you know: the date of death, an estimate of the estate's value, the marital position, and whether there are minor heirs, immovable property or business interests. Not sure is an answer too: the plan keeps every step a fact might bring in until you know.

  2. 2

    Lay out the plan

    The matter's Overview shows the estate panel: whether the estate goes by letters of executorship or letters of authority, and Lay out the administration plan. The administration becomes the matter's tasks in six lists - report the estate to the Master, take control, creditors and claims, SARS and estate duty, the liquidation and distribution account, and distribute and finalise - each task saying what to do, the section it rests on and the template that goes with it.

  3. 3

    Record the key dates as they come

    Letters granted, the section 29 and section 35 notices, the account lodged: record each on the panel or tell the assistant, and the tasks counted from it are dated - the account within six months of letters, the inspection period after the section 35 notice. The panel shows the next deadlines and progress by phase; correct a date and the tasks move with it.

  4. 4

    Draft the documents and do the arithmetic

    Thirteen estate templates - letters to the family, the Master, institutions, creditors and heirs, the section 29 and 35 notices, the liquidation and distribution account, receipts - start a draft on the matter from the panel. In the matter's chat the assistant works out estate duty and the executor's fee on the tariff, or run /administer-estate to review the whole administration.

Deadlines you can trust

  • Each says whether it is statutory or a practice target
  • Calendar months, as the Act counts them
  • A date you set or remove yourself is never changed
  • A step is left out only when a fact rules it out

The lawyer's call, not the AI's

  • Validity of a will, heirship and disputes are flagged, never decided
  • Every figure carries the date it was last verified
  • The Master's J-forms are referred to, never reproduced
  • Where Master's offices differ, the task says so

More in the FAQ: administering an estate , how the deadlines are worked out and estate duty and the executor's fee .

Open an estate matter