“I don’t want to make the same uninformed errors with my estate, so I need to plan and execute documents for my estate.”
The Washington Post reminds us of underlying matters that come to mind when we hear people talk about getting their estate in order in “How to organize your home and finances in your estate.”
First, start with your personal effects and personal financial information. You should make sure that your documents and files are in good order. This includes items like credit card statements, bank statements and auto titles. Everything that you’d need to know should be in one place, labeled neatly. This makes it easy to find everything required to settle your affairs after you pass away.
Next, sort through your personal effects and be sure you know what you have and what you need. If you don’t, it will be no easy feat for your children to take care of your estate and clean things out of your home. This can be a great help to your family later on. As you decide what you should keep and what should go, you’ll also be making your home less cluttered and easier to live in!
The next step is to make sure that what you own is passed down according to your wishes. If you have an estate that includes a home, bank accounts, retirement accounts and a car, make sure to designate a beneficiary on any retirement account, life insurance policy or annuity. Those types of accounts will then pass automatically to the designated beneficiary upon your death solely with the presentation of your death certificate.
You can place your home and other personal effects into a living trust that allows for the transfer of ownership of those items automatically upon your death to the person designated in the trust.
You can also have an estate planning attorney draft a will that states who you want to get your home and personal effects upon your death.
Either way, it’s better to have a legal document in place to make those decisions than no document at all. The choice of a living trust and/or a will depends on your situation. You speak with an estate planning attorney about the benefits of each and which option would be better for you. Call Rowley Law today at 847-490-5330, to schedule an appointment.
Reference: The Washington Post (November 14, 2016) “How to organize your home and finances in your estate”
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