Family members? Yes. Family Members. You DO realize that they have to deal with your estate once you pass into your glory, don’t you? There’s a lot of painful, dirty, tedious detail work to do that no person is ready for. If you don’t take care of it now and ask for help, your family, or perhaps total strangers, will need to go through everything - the good, the bad, the embarrassing. All of it.
Yes. They will clean up your messy old papers, your power tools, your pantry, your cat, your medicine cabinet and your refrigerator’s contents. They will read each and every note to the bank…from 1947. The repetition may cause them to begin to slowly ignore other notes, which, according to Murphy’s law, are likely to be the important ones to notice.
They will try to figure out which accountant’s letterhead they find on your office desk belongs to which part of your life. What to do with the towels in the linen closet? What to do with this envelope that says “SECRET” on it and has a nondescript key inside? The sticky notes you wrote to yourself to remember how to turn on the computer? Those will be sorted with the sticky notes about your dry cleaning, and your prescriptions, and your investments.
Here is a typical set of papers one might find when cleaning a loved one’s home: old travel brochures, life insurance offers, “work from home!” advertising brochures, grocery coupons, water bills, trinkets from Reader’s Digest or QVC, old gas bills, the $100,000 municipal bond maturation notice, unwanted pizza-delivery discount coupons, and local community news-fliers left at the door.
Wait-Did you catch that? Yes, we once found almost exactly that set of items sitting by the trash and ready for disposal. Among them was a $100,000 municipal bond maturation notice. It would have been eventually relinquished to the State of California, had we not found it for the heirs. True story.
You see? These stories abound, so it ALL has to be gone through by someone. The medal you won in high school Latin club will be evaluated with your football trophy, or the first ring a boy ever gave you, perhaps. Of course all of this gets evaluated along with the box of self-addressed envelopes you saved to steam off the return postage back in the days before they made business-reply envelopes, and the sealed box of Ralston hot cereal left on your kitchen countertop, and your beloved cat’s future.
The safe deposit box you kept secret and 100% of its contents will become property of the state you live in because you never told your heirs about it verbally, or formally on paper. Yes, you left that key in the envelope marked “SECRET”, …but no instructions to go with it. To even your most responsible heir, it does not exist. The heirloom diamonds in it? The state of your residence takes that, eventually. Rest assured!
Get the picture? If you do not organize your life, your personal effects, your papers, your will or living trust, it will be done by others who will miss many details under the sheer weight of the task, and you have ZERO input. Your heirs inherit a headache at best, a nightmare at worst. We’re going to look at your responsibilities both as an heir, and as a decedent, because in your lifetime you’re guaranteed to be both.
Let’s start with a basic concept: Everything in your home it will be examined when you’re gone…and most of it will likely be a mystery for your heirs to solve while they are grieving over their loss of you, their loved one. This cuts both ways. If you don’t like your heirs, just think of them pouring over your most personal and private things! If you love them dearly, why would you put them through the trauma of sorting out your estate?
EVERY AMERICAN should take an evening to write down what they want to happen to their belongings when they die. This is an important, if non-legal beginning. A first step. That piece of paper isn’t worth the cost of air in a court of law, but it will help you immensely when you sit down with your advisors to make out a living trust or a will. And, it would STILL help your heirs if you passed before you got it formalized into a will because they could read your intentions in back-and-white. Break down your task into pieces:
-Financial -Personal -Property -Control
Decide who should be in control LAST. Mind you, there are laws on the books to guide that person, but pick the most levelheaded person after you’ve gone through listing what it is that you’ll be leaving them to deal with. The flashy relative you see only once per year isn’t the one to pick, regardless of how much money she/he appears to have.
You want the most responsible, action oriented, decision-making person who cares about carrying out YOUR wishes first and foremost. List the following information for such person to use after you are gone:
-Bank names/Account numbers
-Lawyer contact information
-Accountant contact information
-Investment counselor(s) contact information
-Financial account statements
-Insurance policy documents
-Automobile ownership documents
-Pet’s veterinarian information
-Your best friend’s contact information
-Your clergy’s contact information
Now write out a little note to history. Tell your loved ones, or anyone else, what you value, what you’re proud of, what you wish you had done differently even. Tell them where the diamonds are buried, about the newspaper you hid in the wall as a time capsule when you built the house. Tell them about your best friend, or how to care for Fluffy the cat. This wisdom will help your family and friends as they handle your final affairs. If “who should get what” immediately occurs to you, write that down, too. If not, it can wait a bit. This is an ongoing process, but one that must be completed in full, and soon.
The next morning, call three estate attorneys for quotes on drawing up a living trust or will. Estate law varies from state to state, but if you are allowed a living trust, it is far more powerful than a will, and can even help you financially. Speak with your financial advisors should you choose this method, so they can work with your chosen estate attorney.
The word “attorney” just sounds expensive, doesn’t it? Well, it’s actually not so bad. The consequences of not using one can be totally devastating to your loved ones, however. Financially, and emotionally. And those forms at the stationary store? Forget it. One little mistake in how they are completed, such as a misspelling, or a name on the wrong line, or a date mistake, and the entire document is worthless, and chaos takes over. Use an attorney.
“This text has come from an article prepared by Senior Resources.”