Executor Moves That Misfire: Local Backup Taxes
You're not being dramatic. A foreign executor can turn a plain inheritance into a tax headache that drags on for years. I've seen familie where the executor lived in London, the estate sat in California, and the IRS held up the distribution since one signature didn't match. The fix isn't to drop the foreign pick—it's to build a local backup that keeps the tax clock from running out. Most folks rare think about the backup. They pick someone who knows the more fami, maybe a cousin in Sydney, and assume the will handles it all. But cross-border estate are a varied animal. The tax rules don't care about sentiment. According to bench notes from working crews, the boring baseline check prevents more failures than a shiny new framework introduced mid-sprint under pressure. They care about situs, filing, and deadline. That sequence fails fast.