I've been asked to handle this

Agreeing to be an executor and finding out what it involves are usually two separate moments, a long way apart. If you're somewhere between them, this is what the house part looks like.

You're not behind

Executors often call me and say two things: that they're the executor, and that they need help. Underneath that is usually something closer to I said yes to this, and I had no idea it would be this much work.

That's the normal way round. Nobody agrees to it knowing what's in it.

Three steps I can take off your plate

1. A market valuation of the house. What it's worth as it stands, in writing.
2. Getting it ready for market. What's worth doing and what isn't.
3. Probate — the legal step that confirms when you can act. Understanding the timeline can help you make better decisions.

If my client — the executor — instructs me to, I keep the concerned parties up to date on where we are in the process and what the market is doing.

Everybody often has concerns, and they look to you to solve them

The family, the lawyer, and sometimes people you weren't expecting. Most of the difficulty in an estate sale is here rather than in the house.

Two things help. The first is one market report everyone can see, so the conversation happens around the same set of numbers instead of four different impressions of what the house is worth.

In practice I'll be speaking with the estate's lawyer as often as with you.

Many negotiations

Each estate sale can be different, with different interested parties. Sometimes negotiations begin long before the home is ready to be sold.

My role is to provide the information and guidance required for better decisions to be made. Experience has taught me that sometimes I should be in the conversation, and sometimes not.

What done looks like

The sale closes. Everyone is happy with the outcome, or at least accepting of it. And everyone involved has been heard, which is the part that's easy to skip and hard to repair.

Death brings up unresolved things, and they surface in unusual ways and at unhelpful moments. That isn't a failure of anybody's. It's just what this is, and it's better to expect it than to be surprised by it.