I'm holding my late relative's will, or I was named executor in it — is there a penalty if I just sit on it instead of bringing it to court?

A duty backed by a fine

The obligations placed on whoever is holding a will, and on the executor named in it, are not merely advisory. Neglecting those duties exposes the person responsible to a fine of up to two thousand pesos, which functions as a concrete enforcement mechanism to make sure a will actually reaches the court instead of sitting in a drawer indefinitely. The fine is a ceiling, not a fixed amount, leaving the court room to calibrate the penalty to how serious the neglect actually was, from a brief oversight to a deliberate refusal to come forward. This fine is tied specifically to neglect of the custodian's or executor's duties; it does not itself decide who inherits under the will or resolve any dispute over the will's validity, which remain separate questions for the probate proceeding once the document is actually before the court.

Who it applies to

The fine reaches both the custodian of the will and the executor named in it, covering the two roles most likely to be in physical possession of the document or aware of its existence. Either one can be held to account if the will is not brought forward as required. Naming both roles closes an obvious loophole: a custodian could not simply hand responsibility off to an inactive executor, nor could a named executor claim the duty belonged only to whoever physically held the document, leaving neither of them able to point the finger at the other.

An excuse can avert the fine

The penalty is not automatic. It applies only where the neglect occurs without an excuse the court finds satisfactory, which leaves room for a custodian or executor who had a genuine, court-accepted reason for the delay to avoid the fine, while still holding accountable those who simply failed to act. The court, not the custodian or executor, decides whether a given excuse is satisfactory, so a person cannot unilaterally decide their own reason was good enough to escape the fine without ever presenting it to the court for a ruling. The fine binds each responsible person individually; if both a custodian and an executor neglected their respective duties without excuse, each may be separately fined up to the two-thousand-peso ceiling for their own neglect, rather than the two of them sharing a single penalty.

Related provisions

• Rule 75, Section 4 — Custodian and executor subject to fine for neglect
• Rule 75, Section 1 — Allowance necessary