Taking care of business
Do you have a will? If you do is it current or is your beneficiary the spouse you divorced 10 years ago? Do you know the laws in Ohio when a person dies without one? What happens to the children? Checking accounts, savings accounts, property. You may not have much but do you want the state to take part of what you have worked for? Since we’re talking about stress management and healthy choices this seems like a good topic for today. One more thing to get off your plate.
It all started with the file cabinet project I referenced a week or so ago. The one hour project from hell that morphed into a week. When I got to the file labeled legal papers little bells went off in my head. Had I actually finished, signed, had notarized, the will my attorney and I worked on about a year ago. Actually, I remember making some changes on the draft and returning it via e-mail to his secretary. But I didn’t remember any resolution – not that my memory is totally reliable. So I started thumbing through the documents. Hmmmm, a trust document drafted in 1996 – pretty much out of date BUT without anything revoking it it was still viable AND overrode whatever was in my will. Then there was a will done by my divorce attorney in 2010. Finally, I came to a more recent will – the one drafted by my attorney with my additions and corrections on it – NOT SIGNED. Absolutely worthless.
You may be thinking this doesn’t effect you BUT the ramifications of you dying without one can be serious. For instance, do you have minor children? You may have had a conversation with close friends or relatives about who would step in should you die before they reach age of majority. Not good enough. Put it in writing. Make it legal. Set up the instrument through which your estate, regardless of how small, is distributed to them or their guardians. Without written instructions by you everything has to go through the court system to be decided – a process that can not only drag on but end up being settled in a way you might not have chosen.
Trusts are another avenue of securing your assets for your heirs. It overrides a will so make sure they work in conjunction or have just one or the other. You need legal advice for this. Spend the money. Learn your options.
A new vehicle is Transfer on Death designation affidavit. This form allows property to be assigned without going through probate.
It sounds complicated. It doesn’t sound like something you really want to spend time on right now. Besides, you”re young, you’re healthy, you have lots of time to worry about that. Maybe, maybe not – not for you to say unless you have a crystal ball that works better than mine does. It needs to be done and putting it of doesn’t make it go away.
I knew better. I had been lazy and the upshot was this – the unsigned will in my file cabinet was worthless. An outdated trust document, one that still named guardians for my kids (now 35 and 38!), did not take my partner into account, or the property where we now live – or retirement accounts. Fortunately the file cabinet project brought it to the forefront and its now taken care of.
There are do-it-yourself kits and computer will maker programs. Many options are out there. Tom opted for the will maker kit, has spent several hours filling it out, answering the questionnaire and after all that time still feels he needs an attorney to look it over and pull it together in case he missed something. The choice is yours but make the choice and take action. You won’t regret it and neither will your heirs.