If you have the legal responsibility, why should it be that much different? I admit that I only did my mother's estate, but I had to produce copies of the death certificate, and copies of will and trust that named me as executrix. Do you have those things?

Again, your legal position is determined by the will or other documents, not by relationship.. Unless your aunt did not have a will or a trust. Then yes, I can see an added layer of complications.

And laws may vary from state to state.

Been there, done that. And for me (actually my brother and I) there was no comparison.

My parents had revocable living trusts. Dad predeceased and his trust was retitled as a Family Trust for the benefit of my Mother; her own trust stayed as it was. When she died, we spent 15 minutes with our lawyer to get the ball rolling. Family trust was dissolved, combined into Mother's; a paralegal took the Warranty Deed for the house to the courthouse, had it transferred to me, then we went on to transfer the assets held in trust to our own brokerage accounts - my brother being compensated for the house. She died in September of 2007, and we made sure to have everything cancelled and transferred so there was nothing to create a tax liability beyond 2007. Her estate was totally finished when the 2007 tax returns were done early in 2008.

My widowed and childless aunt was one of those who made the merest of plans- trusting "the right thing" would be done when the time came. And she also had a large estate she wanted divided equally between her two surviving siblings, the son of a deceased sister, and a widowed sister-in-law.

She had accounts in 11 banks in Wisconsin and Minnesota (luckily Wisconsin is just across the bridge from here). I had her financial POA and when she completely relinquished her interest in finances, I spent a lot of time going from bank to bank consolidating accounts, retitling CDs back to just her name because the values and recipients were all over the map, finding stock certificates by going through 60 years of "important papers" neatly (but in no particular order) put away in boxes and drawers in her apartment.

She passed away in Oct. of 2005, but there wasn't any way that estate could be discharged without taxes having to be done for a second year. It took 2 years to make the final disbursement.

Truth be told, it wasn't all that difficult, just a lot of detail work to make sure that everything was, indeed, done "right".

It was all a life lesson to me - get your affairs in order.

Sushi--it's VERY different, because the heirs are NOT direct decendents (children/grandchildren). Because it's a 'sideways' inheritance, there is a LOT more paperwork, more forms to fill out, inheritance tax to be paid--things that don't apply if the heirs are direct decendents.

And yes, duluth--there's a bit of that involved, too--Aunt had several pensions, a number of different investments that I'm working on tracking down, etc. While my mom, on the other hand, had all her money in one place. I was Aunt's POA for 2 years before she died, so I, too, spent some of that time sorting and consolidating, but there's still a lot to track down. And she NEVER threw anything away. I've got a stack of OLD CD's on banks I didn't recognize--finally called the state and found out they're defunct banks that were taken over by the one where she did have most of her savings, so guess that money just transferred over.

After I posted the original question, I just got a call from someone letting me know that they had some of Aunt's $$$, that I didn't know about.

Time frame? Yes, since she died 13 days into this year, it's going to seriously impact the timeframe here, since I'll have to file 2011 tax for both her and the estate. (Mom died in November, that worked out pretty well for the tax years).

But let me add this to Duluth's advice--throw out, or at least make a notation on old, no longer viable paperwork (old cd's, old bank books, etc). When you write notes to your heirs with instructions on them, DATE THEM so they can put them in some sort of chronilogical order--that would be a huge help in determining what companies were still in business at the time of Aunt's death (I'm calling places that have been out of business for years, in some cases). Leave only ONE set of financial, and ONE set of funeral instructions for your family (I've got about 5 different letters regarding how she wanted her funeral--and not all agree. Again, no dates, so I have no way of knowing which was her most recent wishes)

If there is any amount of money involved, you might want to contact a lawyer to make sure all bases are covered. Find one that specializes in what you are doing. Even though my mom did not have much, transferring the stocks and bonds was much easier. It was worth it and they even helped filing, in her case because the stocks were small, and she only had social security and my dad had a small pension, I did not have to file, but the lawyers suggested that I do so the IRS knew there was no hidden funds. That was in 1984, and we never had a problem.