Sole beneficiary as executor, conflict of interest?

On May 14, 7:05 am, c...@my-deja.com wrote:
> I am looking at a copy of a deed for a building, granting ownership in
> a New Jersey property from the estate of a woman to her son.  The deed
> is granted by the administrators of the estate to the son of the
> woman.  What seems peculiar to me is that the administrators of the
> estate are the husband and son of this woman, and then the same son is
> the only beneficiary.

Sounds Kosher to me.   In fact if the son was the sole beneficiary of the late woman's Will, he inherited all her property, so the ownership of the house was equitably his already (albeit, with legal title being held in the name of her Estate, by the Estate's Administrators, for his benefit).   If the son/beneficiary wanted to keep the house after closing of probate, it would make sense to have legal title also put into his name by just such a deed.

OTOH if the son/beneficiary wanted to sell the house and convert its equity value to cash, while the Estate was still undergoing probate, he could do that too, in which case it would not even be necessary to switch over the legal title; he and his dad (the other Administrator) could simply sign the deed turning ownership of the property over to the unrelated third party buyer in their role as Administrators of the decedent's Estate.  Either way seems OK, a matter of personal preference.

> I know very little about estate transfers but it seems like it would
> be a major conflict of interest to have an administrator who is also a
> beneficiary.  Is this legal at all?

Why would it be a conflict of interest?   Where's the conflict?   Everything son does, whether as son or as administrator or as beneficiary, is presumably going to be in son's best interest.   A conflict of interest situation can only arise where the person making the decisions has some possible motivation or incentive NOT to act in the beneficiary's best interest, such as where the decisionmaker has a competing financial stake in the outcome.   Even there, it is quite common for a parent, in her Will, to name one of her adult children as her Administrator, even if she has several other adult children who will also be beneficiaries in addition to the one who has to do all the work.  In your actual case, the decedent seems to have set things up so that in his role as co-Administrator, Son can keep Dad honest (if there was ever any doubt) and avoid even the possibility of a conflict of interest (if, for instance, the surviving parent had sole authority to make probate decisions and may have been inclined to act in ways the child sole beneficiary would not have approved).

But don't take my word for it.   I'm not a NJ lawyer and not familiar with NJ law.  If you are just a curious onlooker, the above should raise some points for discussion and let you draw your own conclusions.   But if you are a professional doing a title search on which substantial rights and obligations worth a lot of money will depend, do your own legal research, not to put too fine a point on it.  8*)

Good luck,

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Mike Jacobs
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