South Carolina § 62-3-703 - General duties; relation and liability to persons interested in estate; standing to sue.

§ 62-3-703. General duties; relation and liability to persons interested in estate; standing to sue.

(a) A personal representative is a fiduciary who shall observe the standards of care described by Section 62-7-804. A personal representative has a duty to settle and distribute the estate of the decedent in accordance with the terms of a probated and effective will and this code, and as expeditiously and efficiently as is consistent with the best interests of the estate. He shall use the authority conferred upon him by this code, the terms of the will, and any order in proceedings to which he is party for the best interests of successors to the estate.

(b) A personal representative shall not be surcharged for acts of administration or distribution if the conduct in question was authorized at the time. Subject to other obligations of administration, an informally probated will is authority to administer and distribute the estate according to its terms. Upon expiration of the relevant claim period, an order of appointment of a personal representative, whether issued in informal or formal proceedings, is authority to distribute apparently intestate assets to the heirs of the decedent if, at the time of distribution, the personal representative has not received actual notice of a pending testacy proceeding, a proceeding to vacate an order entered in an earlier testacy proceeding, a formal proceeding questioning his appointment or fitness to continue, or a proceeding for administration under Part 5. Nothing in this section affects the duty of the personal representative to administer and distribute the estate in accordance with the rights of claimants, the surviving spouse, any minor and dependent children, and any pretermitted child of the decedent as described elsewhere in this Code.

(c) Except as to proceedings which do not survive the death of the decedent, a personal representative of a decedent domiciled in this State at his death has the same standing to sue and be sued in the courts of this State and the courts of any other jurisdiction as his decedent had immediately prior to death.

HISTORY: 1986 Act No. 539, SECTION 1; 2005 Act No. 66, SECTION 5; 2010 Act No. 244, SECTION 44, eff June 7, 2010; 2013 Act No. 100, SECTION 1, eff January 1, 2014.

Effect of Amendment

The 2013 amendment, in subsection (a), deleted "applicable to trustees as" before "described by Section 62-7-804" in the first sentence; and in the third sentence of subsection (b), inserted "Upon expiration of the relevant claim period,", and substituted "has not received actual notice" for "is not aware".