As a residual beneficiary are you responsible to pay outstanding legal fees?
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As a residual beneficiary are you responsible to pay outstanding legal fees?
We are listed as a residual beneficiary in a will and there are outstanding legal fees from an attorney appointed by the court. They are now claiming that as a residual beneficiary we are responsible for those outstanding fees to be paid since there are no more assets left to cover any expenses.
Asked on October 13, 2018 under Estate Planning, Ohio
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 6 years ago | Contributor
No, a beneficiary is not responsible to pay those fees, unless the beneficiary hired the lawyer him/herself (i.e. agreed to pay the lawyer personally). The cost of the estate's lawyers is an *estate* cost: it can be taken from estate assets only, but the beneficiaries are not personally responsibly for the costs unless they agreed to be. If there's no enough for the lawyers, they don't get paid: every lawyer, self included, as faced not being paid for some cases when the "client's" money runs out.
The rule for beneficiaries is that while you are not guaranteed to actually get anything (if all assets are used up or gone), but you don't lose money by being a benefiary: you don't have to pay for the deceased's or the deceased's estate's medical costs.
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