My question is - without a will, and without beneficiaries named on the IRA - will it likely take more than the year to determine who the legal recipients of the estate funds are so as to distribute via K-1s. Certainly the sons will be in lower brackets than the estate. I don't know the legal procedure in NY to determine heirs. This is my second instance this year of a large inheritance so poorly planned. Somebody at the brokerage dropped the ball (as well as the elderly parent). I suppose they had no way of knowing that the original beneficiary (the wife) had died.