Everyone: Estate Planning

Some of you know my story. I lost my husband to Covid in 2021. I was fortunate in that my husband and I had our legal and financial matters in line, but I have heard so many stories of spouses and parents and children having to go through the death of a family member when these matters hadn’t been done. I came across this post that is truly important information.

Additionally, two friends of mine have also dealt recently with having to go through the household of parents who had kept EVERYTHING. One wrote a post begging adults to not leave everything to those left to go through. I know it really helped when we closed up my parents’ house that my mother had told us ahead of time her desires about what specific items would go to whom. The rest we had handled by an estate sale.

Even with good planning, the process of finalizing an estate is long, can be expensive, and happens at a time when loved ones are grieving. These are important matters to think about:

“Spreading this information for those of you that don’t have your affairs in order. Make sure all bank accounts have direct beneficiaries. The beneficiary need only go to the bank with your death certificate and an ID of their own.

- TOD = Transfer On Death deed if you own a home. Completing this document and filing it with your county saves your heirs THOUSANDS. This document allows you to transfer ownership of your home to your designee. All they need to do is take their ID and your death certificate to the county building and the deed is signed over. Doing this will avoid the home having to go through probate.

- Living Will: Allows one to put in writing exactly what you want done in the event you cannot speak for yourself when it comes to healthcare decisions

- Durable Power of Attorney: Allows one to designate a person to make legal decisions if one is no longer competent to do so.

- Power of Attorney for Healthcare: This document allows one to designate someone to make healthcare decisions for their person.

- Last Will and Testament: Designates to whom personal belongings will go too.

- Funeral Planning Declaration: allows one to say exactly one’s wishes as far as disposition of the body and the services.

- If the above documents are done, you can AVOID probate. If all the above is not done, you have to open an estate account at the bank. All money that doesn’t have direct beneficiaries goes into this account. You have to have an attorney to open the estate account. The attorney also has to publicize your passing in the newspaper or post publication at the county courthouse, to allow anyone to make a claim on your property. - It’s a complete PAIN.

- Make a list of all banks and account numbers, all investment institutions with account numbers, lists of credit cards, utility accounts, etc. Leave clear instructions as to how and when these things are paid. Make sure heirs knows where life insurance policies are located.

- Make 100% sure SOMEONE knows your Apple ID, bank ID account logins and passwords!

- Make sure you have titles for all vehicles, campers, etc!

- MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!! - Talk with those closest to you and make all your wishes KNOWN. Talk to those whom you’ve designated, as well as those close to you whom you did not designate. - Do this to explain why your decisions were made and to avoid any lingering questions or hurt feelings.

Hope this helps! Hope this lights a spark to encourage all your friends and family to take care of these things to make it easier for those we all leave behind!

My hope is that the above list at least helps you start an important conversation with your loved ones.”

Artley I am so sorry you lost your husband. My heart goes out to you...

Thank you for sharing this detailed post, it is very informative and something we should all take action on, as difficult as it can be.

Thank you so much...

Thanks Artley. Just one thing, I think you live in the U.S. It's probably good to mention that, because some of these points can be different depending on the country.

USA is listed as my location.

Haha, just saw that. Then, people can ignore my comment, sorry!

Thanks just started doing this, got bank account transferred to my daughter upon my death. signed up for life insurance to cover funeral. Getting things in order.

My wife's (abusive) mother died in June and the estate still hasn't been settled. She set up a will, an executor and a trust (which, unfortunately, was revocable, so became partially depleted).

We started to think about estate planning twice. However, we're stuck on choosing a executor. I'm a loner and my wife has been sick and disabled for over a decade. One sure way to drive people away is to suddenly become Special Needs.

Our situation is complicated as second marriages go. We aren’t rich so not leaving behind much of anything but whatever we do leave, has to be split between three kids. And it’s not the same as siblings as they aren’t. So far two grandkids but I think we’ll have more.

I have headache just thinking about it.

I have a journal. It’s called “I am dead, what’s now?”- it has space for all info you have to leave behind. I bought it 7 years ago. It’s still blank. Ugh

Thank you for this post! I’m working on it now. It’s a project, but worthwhile.