Named Personal Representative in D.C.? Your Duties, in Order
Someone you love has died, and the court has just handed you a document giving you legal authority over everything they owned.
Almost nobody is ready for this. You were named in a will written years ago, or you volunteered because somebody had to, and now you are doing detailed financial administration in one of the hardest months of your life. The District calls the job personal representative. Most other states call it executor. Either way, most people appointed have never done it before and will never do it again.
The job is a fiduciary role, and it carries personal exposure. Pay the wrong creditor, distribute too early, or mix estate money with your own, and the liability can land on you rather than the estate.
This guide walks through the personal representative duties D.C. law imposes, in the order you will meet them.
What Your Appointment Makes You
Once the Probate Division issues your letters, you can do what the decedent could have done: open and close accounts, deal with the bank, sign for the estate, list the house, and bring or defend lawsuits. Under § 20-701(c), a personal representative of a decedent who lived in the District has the same standing to sue and be sued that the decedent had just before death, except for claims that do not survive death.
The standard attached to that power is in § 20-701(a). You must settle and distribute the estate according to the will or the intestacy laws, as a fiduciary, “as expeditiously and efficiently as is prudent and consistent with the best interests of the persons interested in the estate,” while fairly considering the interests of all interested persons and of creditors whose claims have been allowed.
Three ideas in that sentence matter most.
First, you are a fiduciary. The estate’s interests come before yours, including when you are also a beneficiary.
Second, you owe duties to all interested persons. That includes the sibling who did not want you appointed, the stepchild nobody speaks to, and the beneficiary who lives out of state and never calls. You represent the estate, not the part of the family that nominated you.
Third, you owe duties to creditors. This surprises people most. You cannot decide the hospital bill is unfair and skip it.
Section 20-701(b) also gives you a shield: a personal representative “shall not be surcharged” for acts of administration or distribution that were authorized at the time. Acting under a court order or the terms of the probated will protects you. Acting on your own judgment, without advice, may not.
First Deadline: The Inventory, Within Three Months
This one sneaks up on people, because three months pass quickly when you are grieving.
Under § 20-711, the personal representative must prepare a verified inventory of the property the decedent owned at death within three months of appointment. Verified means sworn.
Each item is described in reasonable detail, valued at fair market value as of the date of death, and listed with any encumbrance. The statute groups the property into categories:
Real property.
Tangible personal property, except clothing (furs and jewelry still count), food for the family, family pictures, and family Bibles.
Corporate stock.
Debts owed to the decedent, including bonds and notes.
Bank accounts, savings and loan accounts, building association shares, and money.
Debts the personal representative personally owed the decedent.
Any other interest that passes by will or intestacy.
What happens to the inventory depends on the type of administration. In a supervised administration, you file it with the court along with a certificate that, within the previous 15 days, you mailed or delivered a copy to every interested person with notice of the date it will be filed. In an unsupervised administration, § 20-713.01 still requires the inventory within three months; you mail or deliver it to each interested person, and filing it with the court is optional.
Practical points that save trouble:
Use date-of-death values. For a house that usually means an appraisal; for securities, the closing price on the date of death. A guess at the start causes problems in every later filing.
Start the day you are appointed. Finding accounts, getting date-of-death balances from banks, and scheduling an appraisal all take weeks.
List the encumbrances. A $600,000 condo with a $400,000 mortgage is not a $600,000 asset, and the inventory should show both numbers.
Amend when something new turns up. An old pension or a forgotten account goes on a supplemental inventory.
Creditors: The Six Months That Govern Everything
Notice of your appointment gets published, and that publication starts the clock for the whole administration.
Under § 20-903, most claims against the estate are barred unless presented within six months after the date of first publication of notice of your appointment. Claims by the United States and the District have their own rules, and secured claims and some insured claims are preserved. A creditor who misses the deadline is generally out. A creditor who meets it has to be dealt with.
That window is why a D.C. estate rarely closes in under a year, and why the most common serious mistake a personal representative makes is distributing to beneficiaries before it closes. If you hand out the money and a valid claim arrives in month five, the estate may have nothing left to pay it with, and you may be the one answering for the shortfall.
When the estate cannot pay everyone, you do not get to choose who gets paid. Section 20-906 sets the order:
Court costs, publication costs, and bond premiums.
Funeral expenses, up to $5,000.
Fiduciary and attorney’s fees, up to $1,000.
The homestead and family allowances.
Exempt property.
Reasonable medical and hospital expenses of the last illness.
Rent in arrears.
Judgments and decrees of D.C. courts.
All other just claims.
No claim gets preference over another claim in the same class, so creditors in a class that cannot be paid in full share what is available. Those dollar caps apply only to this ranking, when assets fall short. They do not limit what a solvent estate can pay.
Compare that list with your instincts. The credit card company calling every day sits in the last class. The funeral home sits in the second. Paying the loudest creditor first, or the one you feel worst about, is how a personal representative ends up answering to the creditor who should have been paid ahead of them.
Accounting: Less Filing Does Not Mean Less Duty
Whether you file accounts with the court depends on the track. Under § 20-401, an unsupervised personal representative does not file inventories or accounts with the court and is not under continuing court supervision, though the court can act when a filing requirement is missed or someone raises a specific problem.
In a supervised administration, § 20-721 requires verified written accounts, and § 20-724 sets the schedule: the first account within one year and one day after first publication of notice of your appointment, then every nine months until the final account. The court can extend those dates for good cause, and under § 20-731, filing can be excused when every heir or legatee waives it in writing or the will waives inventories and accounts.
The unsupervised track has a trap. Not filing with the court is not the same as not accounting. Your fiduciary duty to interested persons stays the same, they keep their right to information, and if a beneficiary later challenges what you did, the court will ask you to account for it. The only difference is when you produce the records: routinely, or under hostile questioning years later.
So keep the estate’s books as if you will have to defend them:
Open a dedicated estate bank account under the estate’s tax identification number. Never use your personal account, even briefly.
Keep every receipt, invoice, and statement, and match every payment to a document.
Write down your judgment calls, such as why you accepted an offer on the house or sold the car to a particular buyer at a particular price.
Send beneficiaries regular written updates whether or not anyone requires them. Silence drives most estate litigation.
Six Ways Personal Representatives Get Sued
In rough order of how often we see them:
Distributing too early. The beneficiaries want their money and you want to be finished. Wait out the six-month claims period. Money already handed out is hard to get back, and the shortfall becomes your problem.
Paying claims out of order. Section 20-906 sets a sequence. Pay a general creditor ahead of the last-illness medical bills on an insolvent estate and you may answer for the difference.
Commingling. Estate funds in your personal account, even for a week and with good intentions, is the fact that most reliably turns a routine administration into a contested one. It looks like conversion whether or not it was.
Self-dealing. Buying estate property yourself, selling it to your spouse or your business, or renting the house to your child below market. Some of these transactions are allowed with full disclosure and court approval. Never do one without both.
Sitting on the estate. The duty runs both ways. Section 20-701 requires you to move as quickly as is prudent. Letting a house sit vacant and deteriorating for two years breaches a duty as surely as moving too fast.
Going silent. Silence is not a statutory violation by itself, but it accelerates every other problem. Beneficiaries who cannot get answers hire lawyers. Beneficiaries who get a quarterly email usually do not.
If you are both the personal representative and a beneficiary, the others will read every decision as self-interested. That does not disqualify you. It makes documentation and communication more important.
Getting Paid, and Closing the Estate
Under § 20-751, you are entitled to reasonable compensation for your services, unless the court orders otherwise for good cause in a supervised administration, and you are entitled to reimbursement for expenses you advance, such as filing fees, publication costs, and the appraisal. If the estate cannot pay all claims, § 20-906 gives only the first $1,000 of fiduciary and attorney’s fees priority, so raise compensation early in a tight estate.
Keep expense records from the first day. Reimbursement requests rebuilt from memory a year later are the ones beneficiaries contest.
Closing follows the same logic as opening. The claims period runs out, claims are paid in order, the remaining assets are distributed under the will or the intestacy statute, beneficiaries sign receipts, and in a supervised administration a final account goes to the court. Get a signed receipt from every beneficiary for everything they receive. That paperwork lets you close the file without wondering for years whether you are still exposed.
You can also hire help, and the estate generally pays for it. Attorney’s fees, an accountant, and an appraiser are expenses of administration. Personal representatives who try to save the estate money by doing everything themselves are the ones who most often cost it money.
The Short Version
Inventory within three months. Creditors have six months from first publication. Pay claims in the statutory order, not the order people call you. Distribute after the window closes. Keep the estate’s money in the estate’s account. Write things down. Tell the beneficiaries what is happening.
Do those seven things and the job stays administrative. Skip one and it can become personal.
The Law Office of Jacobie K. Whitley, PLLC represents personal representatives through estate administration in the District and Maryland, and represents beneficiaries when an administration has gone wrong. For background on how estates open and when a will is enough, see Do You Need More Than a Will? What D.C. Probate Involves. If you have just been appointed and have not yet prepared an inventory, now is the time to call: (202) 499-2403.
This article is general information about District of Columbia law, current as of October 2026. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Deadlines and filing requirements vary by estate and change over time; confirm current requirements with the Probate Division at 202-879-9460 or with counsel.
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