🔑 Collecting Assets and Marshaling Assets Are Not the Same Thing

In estate administration, “collecting” assets and “marshaling” assets are related, but they are not identical. Collecting is the narrower idea. It concerns getting an asset in: locating it, securing it, obtaining control over it, or having it transferred into the estate’s administrative orbit. Marshaling is broader. It includes collection, but it also concerns the estate as a whole and the fiduciary’s responsibility to understand what assets exist, what their character is, and how they fit into administration.

That distinction matters because an executor may collect a particular asset without yet having marshaled the estate. The broader task of marshaling asks not simply whether an asset has been found, but how the estate’s assets fit together for purposes of administration.