An inheritance arrives with a deadline structure most people are not told about: some decisions have statutory windows measured in months, and most of the rest have none at all. Separating the two is the first useful task, because almost nothing needs to be decided in the first quarter.
Inheriting money is usually described as a financial event. In practice the financial part is the simpler half, and it arrives while the other half — a parent has died, and there is an estate to administer — is still underway. Advice that ignores that ordering is not much use.
The sequence below separates what genuinely has a clock on it from what does not. The second list is much longer than most people expect.
What has a deadline, and what does not
- 01First weeks
Find out what you have actually inherited
Retirement accounts, taxable accounts, property, and interests in a trust are each governed by different rules, and the differences matter more than the totals. An inherited retirement account carries distribution requirements that an inherited brokerage account does not.
- 02First months
Identify the decisions with statutory clocks
Some elections — the treatment of an inherited retirement account, disclaimers, certain estate filings — have windows fixed by statute rather than by preference. These are the items to get in front of a CPA and an estate attorney early, because missing one is generally not reversible.
- 03First months
Leave the portfolio where it is, for now
Inherited assets can usually sit as they are while the estate is administered. There is rarely a penalty for waiting a quarter, and decisions made in the weeks after a death are made by someone in the middle of grieving. That is not a good moment to restructure anything.
- 04Months 3–12
Work out what this changes about your own plan
The useful question is not how to invest the inheritance but what it changes about the plan you already had — whether a goal moved, whether a risk that mattered no longer does, whether it changes what you can do for your own children.
- 05Year one onward
Decide what the money carries
Inherited wealth usually arrives attached to something: a business someone built, a house someone kept, a cause someone supported. Families who write down what they intend to carry forward tend to make more coherent decisions later than families who treat it as an unlabeled balance.
Common questions
What should I do first after receiving an inheritance?
Establish what type of assets you have inherited and which decisions have statutory deadlines, because those two facts determine everything else. Inherited retirement accounts, taxable accounts, property, and trust interests are governed differently. Most other decisions have no deadline at all and are better made after the estate is administered.
How long can I wait before investing an inheritance?
In most cases inherited assets can remain as they are while an estate is administered, and there is rarely a cost to waiting a quarter. The exceptions are elections with statutory windows — the treatment of inherited retirement accounts among them — which should be identified early with a CPA or estate attorney.
Will I owe tax on an inheritance?
Treatment varies by asset type, by state, and by how the estate is structured, so this is a question for a CPA who can see the specifics. What is generally true is that the tax character of what you inherit — retirement account, taxable account, or property — differs substantially, and that the differences matter more than the headline amount.
This guide is provided for educational purposes by Jason Howell Company. It is general information, not investment, tax, or legal advice, and it does not account for any individual circumstances. Decisions described here generally require a CPA, an attorney, or both.