After you’ve been appointed, it may take a week or more for the court staff in the business office to issue the paperwork, called Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration, documenting your authority to begin collecting all of the assets that belonged to the decedent at the time of his or her death. You will need to obtain a TIN or tax identification number, from the IRS, then provide that and your Letters to a bank to open an estate bank account. At that point, you can begin “marshaling” or collecting and transferring cash from the decedent’s personal account into it. You will also marshal any investment accounts, personal property or real estate owned by the decedent.
There are other tasks that you will need to accomplish between the time you are appointed and the end of administration. Many of these additional tasks relate to required notices to various agencies and individuals. Other tasks involve tax filings, addressing creditor's claims, and creating a formal accounting in the format required by the Probate Code.