Executor Dispute Lawyers in Melbourne

When the person running the estate becomes the problem

Your parent trusted one child to handle everything, and now that child will not return calls, will not show the accounts, and has moved into the estate’s house. Or you are that trusted child, doing an unpaid job you never asked for, and your siblings have started calling you a thief.

Executor disputes are the most personal fights in estate law, because the executor is almost always family. They are also among the most fixable, provided somebody acts before positions harden. We act for beneficiaries who need an executor to account or to go, and for executors who need the accusations to stop. Whichever seat you are in, call 1800 130 120 for a free, confidential first call before you send the next angry message.

What an executor must actually do

An executor’s job has a defined shape. They locate the will and obtain probate, identify and secure the assets, pay the debts and tax, then distribute to the beneficiaries under the will, keeping proper accounts the whole way through. Their duty runs to the beneficiaries as a group, which rules out favouring their own interests or one wing of the family.

The law also gives them time. Executors sensibly wait six months from the grant of probate before distributing, because that is the window for family provision claims, and the traditional executor’s year allows roughly twelve months to complete the job. Those markers matter, because plenty of the disputes we see are premature and plenty of others are long overdue.

Six months of silence after probate can be an executor doing the job properly. Eighteen months of silence, with an unsold house and no accounts, has usually stopped being caution and started being a claim.

What the Supreme Court can order

When an administration genuinely breaks down, the Supreme Court of Victoria has real remedies: an order that the executor deliver proper accounts, an order to hand over estate property, removal and replacement of the executor, and personal costs orders against an executor whose conduct caused the estate loss. Removal applications succeed where the beneficiaries’ welfare demands it, whether through conflict, incapacity, dishonesty or plain refusal to act.

Payment is its own battleground. Commission is capped at five per cent of the estate and must rest on the will, on informed consent, or on a court order, and beneficiaries can have excessive claims reviewed. Where the dispute has widened beyond the executor, into the will itself or the shares people received, the related claims are covered on our contesting a will and estate litigation pages.

We defend executors too

A large share of our executor work is defence. Honest executors get attacked because a beneficiary’s expectations were unrealistic, or because grief needed a target, or simply because nobody ever explained why the house cannot settle before probate issues. We put the administration on a defensible footing by giving the beneficiaries a clear timeline, getting the accounts in order and putting written advice behind each decision. Most attacks deflate once the paperwork is solid, and if yours does not, you are already prepared for court.

Where to start, whichever side you are on

Gather three things: the will, the grant of probate if there is one, and whatever accounts or correspondence exist. Then call 1800 130 120 or use the form on this page and press GET FREE ADVICE. On one free call we will tell you whether this is a communication problem, a court problem, or something in between, and what the next step should be. Where the argument turns out to be about the will itself rather than the person administering it, our wills dispute lawyers pick that up, and if no grant has issued yet our probate lawyers can get one moving in parallel.