WISCASSET — The attorney for Rene Nicol, a top Maine automobile dealer who died in a plane crash Aug. 13 in Mapleton, said Thursday his client did not leave a will governing disposal of his property.

“At this point we have not found one and we don’t expect to,” said David Soule Jr. of Wiscasset. “It’s tragic. It wasn’t on his list of priorities. He had the attitude that he never had the time to get to it. I talked to him over and over about making a will. I think it is the classic example of people who have been advised over and over again but never do it.”

Soule and Nicol were friends from the mid-1980s, when Nicol bought his first dealership.

Nicol, who never married, is survived by a sister in Maryland and a brother, sister and special friend in Amesbury, Mass., where he was born and buried.

The Lincoln County Probate Court named a sister and brother of Nicol as personal representatives for the estate, which includes three dealerships and two apartments in Maine; two dealerships and an apartment in New Hampshire; and two dealerships in Maryland, according to Soule.

Soule handles Nicol’s estate in Maine. An attorney in each of the other two states is taking care of property there.

Soule declined to estimate Nicol’s worth.

“I don’t know, and any guess I would make is totally wild,” he said. “It will take a long time to resolve all of this. We sat down with the accountants [Wednesday]. We are probably looking at three years before we can wind this up. The big thing is the complexity of the estate and different jurisdictions involved.”

Soule said the family’s attitude is that their brother had placed good people in authority at each dealership.

“They recognize that the people are doing a wonderful job and want them to make a success of it,” said Soule. “One of their primary concerns is that they didn’t want anyone to lose their jobs.”

Sales are moving steadily upward at all the dealerships, he added.

Nicol was a “special young man,” said Soule, echoing those who remembered the entrepreneur who said his employees, which numbered more than 400, were his family.