Both administrator and executor are involved in distributing the property of a deceased person to the inheritors. The difference is the existence of a last will and testament.
THe executor's role is to distribute the property under a will in a testamentary process. The executor is specificaly named by the decased person in the will. The executor acts based on the power vested in him/her by the testator, as executor is a person trusted by the deceased. The executor is expected to act in strict compliance with the decrees of the deceased person. This role includes many different activities, including paying the debts and the taxes of the deceased person, maintaining the property until it can be distributed, representing the estate in court in eventual disputes related to the estate, distributing the propertyand assets of the deceased person, as well as dispose of any other property left after distributing all the heirs.
The administrator is the person who distributes the estate under the law of intestate succession. THe administerator is appointed by the court and his/her role is similar to that of the executor, with the exection that the administrator acts upon the order of the court and not the designation in the will. The adminisrator has the legal right to deal with affairs of the deceased person as determined by a set order of priority stipulated in the probate laws of the relevant jurisdiction.
