New York Letters Testamentary is a document issued by the Surrogate’s Court that enables you to act on behalf of an estate of a person who died with a will.
Here is a redacted image of Letters Testamentary obtained by our law firm:
The document, Letters Testamentary, is not a letter in the common sense of the word. In legal usage, the word “letters” means something along the lines of “Mandate, Authorization and Order.”
What follows is that a lawyer cannot issue letters of administration for you. The only thing a lawyer can do is to represent you in the process of obtaining the Letters Testamentary from the court.
If you are looking for an attorney who can represent you in getting New York letters testamentary, you can send us an email at [email protected] or call us at 212-233-1233.
You cannot act as the executor until the court issues Letters Testamentary. Only then can you collect the assets of the estate, pay the estate’s debts and expenses and distribute the remainder to the estate’s beneficiaries.
Letters Testamentary authorize a person to act as a representative of an estate. They allow a person to perform the responsibilities of an estate.
Here are some of the powers that the executor has once they are appointed as an executor of an estate by Letters Testamentary issued by the Surrogate’s Court:
Those things would be impossible to do without New York Letters Testamentary. The banks will not give you information and will not transfer the money in the bank accounts, the county recorder will not record property deeds, and a buyer will not buy a property from you.
In order to get letters testamentary, you need to submit a petition for probate together with its supporting documents to the Surrogate’s Court.
Here are the documents you will need:
Make sure that you submit a complete set of documents to the court. Failure to submit complete documents will result to delays in the issuance of Letters Testamentary. With delay, you will not be able to immediately perform your duties as executor and you cannot marshall and collect the assets of the decedent. You will not be able to take hold of bank accounts or sell real estate belonging to decedent.
Although a petition for probate can be done pro se (by yourself), delay may ensue in the issuance of letters testamentary, especially when the documents you submit are not complete. Although we have outlined the main documents required, the court may require additional documents depending on the circumstances of each case.
Letters Testamentary are issued when a person died with a will, to a person who applies and is appointed by the court as the administrator of a deceased person’s estate. A person can only be an executor of an estate if they are nominated by the will of the person who died and are otherwise qualified – are over the age of 18 and are not a convicted felon.
It typically takes a few months to get letters testamentary. If the probate is contested, i.e. if someone is challenging the will, then getting letters testamentary can take years, or they can be potentially denied altogether. Although getting the letters is only one of the steps of the New York probate process, it is the most important step.
Once you are granted Letters Testamentary, you will need to get a few Certificates of Appointment of Executor. You will need more than one since each bank and government agency would require an original. Also, some institutions require a more official-looking document. This is why the court can also issue a Certificate of Appointment of Executor, which is printed on a watermarked blue and red paper and looks similar to a death certificate, birth certificate or marriage certificate.
Here is a redacted image of a Certificate of Appointment of Executor obtained by our law firm:
If the person who died did not leave a will, the document will be similar and with similar powers, but it will be called “Letters of Administration,” and the Certificate will be called “Certificate of the Appointment of Administrator.”
Whether or not your letters testamentary will expire depends on the text. If the document does not specify that it expires, then it does not expire. What does expire is the Certificate of Appointment of Executor. You would need to renew those every six months.
You will file this petition in the Surrogate’s Court where the decedent last resided. If the decedent died in a nursing home, you will file it in the county where the decedent was a resident before entering the nursing home.
When you think there’s going to be delay in the issuance of Letters Testamentary, you can request for Preliminary Letters Testamentary (also called Temporary Letters). The issuance of Preliminary Letters Testamentary allows you to do the following things, except to distribute assets to the beneficiaries:
Examples of situations where you can get Preliminary Letters Testamentary:
The person who usually files an application for Preliminary Letters Testamentary is the nominated executor of the will.
When the decedent dies as a resident of another state, the petition for probate is filed by the executor in the county of the state where the decedent last resided. However, if the decedent had property in New York, the executor can only collect these New York assets if the executor has ancillary letters testamentary from the Surrogate’s Court. The Surrogate’s Court will verify your out-of-state Letters Testamentary through a New York ancillary probate proceeding.
New York Letters Testamentary is distinguished from New York Letters of Administration (used when a person dies without a will) and New York Voluntary Letters of Administration (used when a person dies with a small estate).
If you do need legal representation for your Letters Testamentary, we at the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin are here for you. We have offices in New York City, Brooklyn, NY and Queens, NY. You can call us at 212-233-1233 or send us an email at [email protected].