Paul O. Dillon, Attorney at Law

How to Create a Digital Estate Plan

Money and real estate are traditional assets that most people think of when creating an estate plan. However, you also have social media pages, photos on your phone and everything from ebooks to shopping lists on your digital devices. When you die, what happens to all these digital assets needs to be planned just as much—or maybe more—than traditional assets.

A recent article from The New York Times, “How to Prepare for Your Digital Afterlife,” explains the steps necessary to protect your identity and digital property with a digital asset estate plan.

Create a digital directive. A law known as RUFADAA (Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act) allows you to give an individual the authority to manage your digital life. Most states have enacted this law; your estate planning attorney will know your state’s laws. You’ll want to create a document listing your accounts and a document telling how you want your online accounts and digital content managed if you are incapacitated or die. This should be included in your other estate planning documents.

Sharing account logins, usernames and passwords needs to be done carefully. You’ll need to store this information in a safe place, as it could be used to steal your assets and identity. This includes financial institutions, e-commerce stores like Amazon or eBay, insurance policies, online storage, email, social media, cable and wireless carriers, medical portals and media subscriptions.

There are password managers you can use, and some platforms, like Apple and Google, have apps to save this information. If you’d prefer to stay analog, use something as simple as a notebook. Just be sure to keep it in a home safe or another secure location.

Include the passwords and codes needed to log into the password manager itself and how to access your cell phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer. Your executor may also need your contact list so they can reach out to people to inform them of your passing. They’ll also need to be able to use your phone for any accounts requiring two-factor authentication.

Name a legacy contact and ask if they are willing to help. Just as you need to discuss your wishes for someone to be your executor, you also need to speak with your digital executor to ensure that they can and are willing to help your family with this process. In Apple, Google, Facebook, and some other accounts, you can name a legacy contact, the person who has your permission to manage the account after you’ve passed.

If you’re trying to handle digital assets for someone who didn’t make plans for their digital assets, you can expect it to take longer to settle the estate. Your first act may be to shut down social media profiles and other accounts to avoid identity theft. Notify the social media companies and request that they close their accounts. You’ll need a death certificate, identification and Letters Testamentary—court-issued documents provided to an executor to prove their authority to represent the decedent and their estate and your personal identification.

Unlike paper statements, digital assets, including cyber currency, don’t have a trail to follow. There won’t be filing cabinets stuffed with old statements or shoeboxes of invoices for anyone to reconstruct your life, so planning for your digital assets will make life easier for your executor and heirs.

Reference: The New York Times (Feb. 12, 2025) “How to Prepare for Your Digital Afterlife”

What are the Biggest Mistakes People Make with Estate Plans?

Ask any estate planning attorney for a horror story and step back as they come flooding out. Moms who leave millions to a veterinarian to care for a beloved cat or uncles who grabbed and kept a half-million-dollar insurance policy intended for a son are just a few examples.

When your estate plan isn’t properly prepared, many things can go wrong, according to a recent article from Kiplinger, “Wills Gone Wild: How to Avoid Estate Planning Disasters.” Assets can end up with the wrong people, or beloved children can be disinherited entirely. A bungled do-it-yourself will can lead to a distant cousin inheriting your entire estate, while a life-long partner ends up homeless and impoverished.

If you intend to protect those you love, you’ll need to sit down with an estate planning attorney and create a last will and testament and other estate planning documents. Without a will, you can be sure family discord will follow your passing.

Aretha Franklin provides one lesson on what happens when there’s no formal will. Not one but two handwritten or holographic wills were found in her home in Detroit after she died. One, dated 2010, was found in a locked cabinet, while the second was found under a couch cushion, dated 2014. There were four sons, and all disagreed about which one was valid. The matter went to court, with a judge ruling the 2014 will was valid. Not all states accept holographic wills and leaving more than one copy around the home doesn’t guarantee anything but a family fight and legal expenses.

Many people are testing online wills. However, the unintended consequences are very costly for loved ones. One father decided he would create a will without an estate planning attorney. When he died, instead of dividing his estate equally between three adult children, all his property and assets went to the children and the grandchildren. Each of his three children had children, so what he intended to be a simple three-way split ended up being divided into many small gifts.

Second and subsequent marriages can complicate estates. Estate planning attorneys all have stories about remarried people who want their estate to go to the new spouse but forget to take care of their children from the first marriage. When the second spouse inherits the entire estate, it’s easy enough to rewrite the will, and the deceased spouse’s kids are disinherited. A surviving spouse is under no legal obligation to maintain an old will or to give assets to stepchildren. Estate planning attorneys know how to use trusts and other strategies to protect the surviving spouse and the biological children.

Pets are often part of estate planning disasters. One attorney tells the tale of a client estranged from her only child, a daughter. She wanted to leave everything in her estate to her cats. However, something went very wrong, and her veterinarian inherited $3.5 million. In this case, the vet was an upstanding citizen and worked with an estate planning attorney to ensure any monies left after the death of the cats went to animal charities. However, there was no legal requirement for the vet to do so.

Elderly people are often preyed upon by their trusted caretakers. One horror story concerned two elderly men who lived together and shared a home care nurse. When one of the men was hospitalized, the caretaker and her husband came to the home and exploited the second man. The caregiver convinced the elderly man to make her a beneficiary of a $500,000 CD and joint owner of a lakefront vacation home.

When it comes to estate planning, the only way to avoid a nightmare legacy is to meet with an experienced estate planning attorney and have an estate plan created. Estate planning attorneys have seen more wild tales than you can imagine and can ensure that you don’t become one of them.

Reference: Kiplinger (Jan. 29, 2025) “Wills Gone Wild: How to Avoid Estate Planning Disasters”

Don’t Procrastinate on Estate Planning Moves

Planning for wealth transfers, whether you are the person doing the giving or the recipient, is essential to avoid expensive surprises, says a recent article from Go Banking Rates, “Wealth Transfers: 9 Unexpected Obstacles to Plan For Before It’s Too Late.”

Wealth transfers fall into two categories. Beneficiary wealth is wealth passed from your estate to beneficiaries. The second is legacy wealth, which is when entities, like trusts, are created to pass wealth on in perpetuity. The first step in planning for wealth transfer is deciding what you want to happen to the wealth you’re passing on.

The next step is figuring out the tax implications of the wealth transfer. A traditional IRA or 401(k) account is tax-advantaged, while non-qualified assets include stocks, bonds, investment accounts and Certificates of Deposit (CDs). Unless they fall into certain categories, an heir receiving an inherited traditional IRA must empty the account within ten years with Required Minimum Distributions and pay income taxes on those distributions. For this and many other reasons, estate planning includes tax planning.

Estate planning includes articulating your wishes for how wealth is to be passed. Without having a will prepared by an estate planning attorney, you risk your entire estate being tied up in court probate proceedings for months or even years. Fights among family members are more likely to occur when your wishes aren’t made clear through enforceable legal documents.

You’ll also want to discuss your estate plan with your family. A sudden inheritance, if not expected, could create tax issues, sow discord between family members and lead to expensive litigation if some feel they were treated unfairly.

People think they don’t need an estate plan because they are too young, still healthy, or don’t have enough assets to warrant taking the time to create an estate plan. This is simply not true. Anyone over the age of 18 will benefit from having an estate plan. An estate plan includes preparing for incapacity and creating documents, like a Power of Attorney and Healthcare Proxy, so someone else can take care of you if you are injured or too sick to communicate your wishes. As you accumulate more assets and age, these documents need to be reviewed and updated to reflect changes in status.

A commonly overlooked and often expensive mistake in estate planning is to neglect to check and update beneficiary designations. This lesson is learned when people get divorced or remarry. When the spouse passes, the new spouse is stunned to discover the recipient of these accounts goes to the prior spouse.

Don’t forget to leave specific instructions in writing for tangible assets. This may include real estate property, cars and houses. Some people want to give their children the family home but have them sell it immediately to take the cash. If your wishes aren’t expressed, don’t expect them to be followed.

Speak with an estate planning attorney before it’s too late to put your wishes into an estate plan. Talk with your family about your estate plan. Making sure everyone knows what you want and putting it down on paper will protect your wishes and your loved ones.

Reference: Go Banking Rates (Jan. 24, 2025) “Wealth Transfers: 9 Unexpected Obstacles To Plan For Before It’s Too Late.”

Estate Planning and the Business Side of Hugh Hefner

The Hefner estate is sophisticated and controlling, an unlikely counterpoint to a brand from the last century built on hedonism. The estate protected his children and widow. However, it came with strict conditions, says an article, “From Mansion to Management: Legacy Lessons From The Playboy Saga,” appearing in a recent issue of Forbes.

The Hefner saga offers lessons about the importance of estate planning, the power of intellectual property and the challenge of balancing a legacy with reinvention over decades. The question of how heirs can use family wealth while creating their own lives, even their own legacies, is part of the story.

Hugh Hefner sold a majority share of Playboy Enterprises in 2011 and placed the assets in a trust. His heir’s ability to access the assets was made subject to conditions. Unfortunately, by selling the majority share, he limited his family’s ability to be involved with the brand. In 2024, Playboy was struggling financially, and its stock value dropped from a $2 billion valuation in 2021 to around $53 million.

Hugh’s son Cooper attempted to reclaim the brand with a $100 million bid. However, the new owners rejected the bid. While his father ensured the family’s financial security by selling the company, he removed the ability of heirs to maintain the brand’s future. This is a classic example of how too much control can stifle innovation, while too little can lead to a lost legacy.

Hefner’s estate plan featured a lot of conditional gifting in his trusts. Heirs would lose their entire inheritance if they engaged in substance abuse. This is a growing trend among ultra-high-net-worth families wishing to ensure that wealth doesn’t equal reckless behavior. Conditional gifting encourages responsibility, requiring heirs to meet certain conditions before accessing funds. It can also preserve wealth for multiple generations by structuring payouts and providing guardrails against rapid depletion.

Hefner’s best financial move may have been to transition his business from a publishing empire to an intellectual property model. When he sold the majority stake in Playboy Enterprises, he also positioned the company to rely on licensing deals and branding partnerships for future revenue.

In many families, intellectual property is an often-overlooked asset class. The Playboy Bunny logo is among the most recognized logos in the world. Three key lessons are found here. Brand equity can live long after the original business model is long gone; intellectual property can provide a financial safety net; future generations need to understand the value of intellectual property. Cooper Hefner clearly did, which is why he attempted to purchase the business.

When creating an estate plan, finding a balance between control and flexibility is not always easy. Wealthy families who wish to continue a business’ success need to motivate heirs, while at the same time leaving opportunities for them to make their own mark.

Regardless of your family’s situation, an estate planning attorney can create a plan to pass wealth onto the next generation, while leaving room for children and grandchildren to create their own legacies.

Reference: Forbes (Jan. 26, 2025) “From Mansion To Management: Legacy Lessons From The Playboy Saga”

Think of Estate Planning as a Gift to Loved Ones

When you think of a gift for your family, you might think about matching sweaters or a family vacation. However, the gift of an estate plan will be remembered because it demonstrates your ability to take care of your family and could help build wealth across generations. A recent article from CNBC Money Report, “Here’s why estate planning is a gift to your family,” explains how this works.

Remember, there’s no relationship between creating a will and signing documents and something happening to you immediately afterward. This notion keeps many otherwise responsible adults from taking care of their estate plans. Don’t fall prey to it.

Another point is that families fight over money and possessions, even when relationships are good. Without clear instructions provided in an estate plan, a family undergoing the loss of a parent is vulnerable to fighting and litigation.

You’ll want to have a Last Will and Testament and, depending on your situation, possibly trusts, a Power of Attorney for financial and legal matters if you are incapacitated and a Healthcare Proxy (sometimes called a Healthcare Power of Attorney), so someone can make medical decisions and talk with treating doctors in case you can’t communicate.

What happens when there is no estate plan? The courts will make all of your decisions, regardless of the wishes of your loved ones. Your entire estate will go through probate, and a stranger could be named to take charge of it, with a hefty fee to compensate them for their services.

If you have minor children and no will, the court will name a guardian to raise your children. Will it be someone you would have picked or your distant cousin who lives hundreds of miles away? There’s no way to know.

Assets titled properly or those with a named beneficiary will go directly to those named on the accounts without going through probate. This is one of the attractions of trusts, which never become public.

Part of creating an estate plan includes reviewing your accounts and beneficiary designations to ensure that the people named as your beneficiaries are still correct. If you have any old accounts you haven’t looked at in decades, now is the time to ensure that you’re not leaving your pension to an old college pal—unless that’s your intention.

Estate planning is about empowering the present and planning for the future. Chances are you’ve read many news articles about celebrities with massive estate problems because they failed to plan. Leaving a mess for your family to deal with is probably not the legacy you had in mind.

Give yourself and your loved ones the peace of mind knowing you’ve taken care of your estate plan. Be remembered as someone who cared enough to do the right thing. Consult with an experienced estate planning attorney today.

Reference: CNBC Money Report (Jan. 7, 2025) “Here’s why estate planning is a gift for your family”

Is Having a Will Important?

A last will and testament is a legal document outlining your wishes for the distribution of your property, the care of any dependent minor children and the declaration of who you want to be your executor. As explained in a recent article, “Do I Need a Will?” from mondaq, your will is a powerful tool giving you control over your estate and protecting your final wishes.

All wills become a matter of public record after they are filed with the court in the probate process. This is when the court determines if the will is valid, i.e., meets the requirements of the law in your state and if the executor, the person who you named to be in charge of distributing your assets and managing your estate after you die, is acceptable to the court.

There are many advantages to having a will, not the least of which is the peace of mind of knowing your wishes have been expressed, documented and will be carried out. Without a will, your estate is going to be divided according to your state’s laws. You or your family members may not like how the state does this. However, there won’t be much they can do about it.

Parents of young children or children with special needs must have a will to name a guardian for their offspring. Without a will, the court will decide who will raise your children and where they will live.

Having a comprehensive estate plan helps prevent family conflicts. Your clear instructions should leave no doubt about your intentions. Families in the middle of grieving the loss of a loved one are often susceptible to fighting when they otherwise would be able to work out issues without drama.

Having a will also allows you to create a legacy by giving assets to a charity you care about. Your estate planning attorney can help you with a number of gifting strategies to make donations over time, minimize tax liabilities and provide heirs with income streams.

The first step in creating a will is identifying an experienced estate planning attorney you feel comfortable with. The next step is to create an inventory of your assets, including everything from bank accounts, investment accounts, retirement funds, personal items and real estate property.

Some assets don’t pass through a will. Accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs usually have beneficiary designations and pass directly to the person or people named by you when you opened the account. Make sure that these designations are still correct so the right people receive these assets.

Depending on your income and asset level, estate planning has many tax implications. You’ll want to take advantage of any tax-saving opportunities.

Once you’ve reviewed these materials, your estate planning attorney will create the documents. The will needs to be put in writing, signed and witnessed. You may need one or two witnesses, depending on where you live. Remember that your will needs to be updated to keep pace with changes in your life and the law.

Having a will created by an experienced estate planning attorney will help you avoid common mistakes, understand complex concepts and create a plan for the future for you and your family.

Reference: mondaq (Dec. 19, 2024) “Do I Need a Will?”

Is It Better to Transfer Assets before Death?

Many people like to give inheritances after they have passed. However, another approach is to gift while living, which has some definite advantages for both the giver and the recipients. As explained in the article, “Gifting While You’re Alive: Tax Benefits and Practical Tips,” from Kiplinger, giving while living allows you to see how your legacy helps others, provides for greater control and has tax advantages.

Reasons for gifting while living vary widely. Therefore, be sure that your gifting strategy is part of a comprehensive estate plan and makes sense for your financial needs during your lifetime. Don’t give assets you need to cover living expenses, surrender investments early to incur additional costs or create a significant tax burden for yourself. Gifting while living should only be done if you and your spouse can afford it.

In 2024, individuals can give up to $18,000 per person to as many people as they want. In 2025, the level will increase to $19,000 per person for an individual and $38,000 for a married couple.

The IRS defines a gift as a property transfer where no equal value is received in return. Whether your gift is used for a down payment on a house, adding an owner to real estate property, paying off a debt for someone else, or forgiving a previous loan, check with an estate planning attorney to be sure that you are staying within the exclusion levels. Anything over the limit will incur taxes.

If your generosity extends to helping with educational costs or medical debt, be sure to make payment directly to the hospital, care facility, university, or private school. Only direct payments are gifts.

Gifting assets like shares in a business or real estate requires a professional appraisal to document the value of the gift. You don’t want to draw any attention from the IRS, so be sure to follow the guidelines.

If you hope to help a family member buy a home, you could structure your gift as an intrafamily loan. There are guidelines you’ll need to follow to make sure this is not considered a taxable gift by the IRS.

When gifts are made could matter as much as their size. Be careful when gifting appreciated assets and discuss this with your estate planning attorney beforehand. Inherited assets receive a step-up in basis at death. Still, inherited assets retain their original cost basis and could lead to capital gains taxes for the recipient if they sell the assets. If you gift your home to your children, for instance, they may be subject to a big tax bill if they sell the house in the future.

Section 529 educational savings plans are a great way for grandparents to help with their grandchildren’s education. Contributions can be front-loaded, allowing up to five years’ worth of contribution to be made at once—as much as $90,000 in 2024 and $95,000 in 2025 to a single 529 plan. Any additional gifts to the same beneficiary during the five-year period following the big funding could trigger gift taxes.

Talk with your estate planning attorney about making this kind of giving part of your overall estate plan. Seeing your family enjoy your generosity and knowing you’ve made a big dent in estate and inheritance taxes is a warm feeling for all concerned.

Reference: Kiplinger (Dec. 4, 2024) “Gifting While You’re Alive: Tax Benefits and Practical Tips”

Does Talking with Heirs About Estate Plans Keep Families Closer?

Warren Buffet believes parents should read their wills to their children before they are signed, reports a recent article from yahoo! finance, “Warren Buffet has advice for parents on inheritance planning.” This level of transparency can prevent families from being torn apart after the parents have passed and can serve to bring children closer.

Buffet’s advice is one frequently given by estate planning attorneys to their clients: talk to your heirs about their inheritance while you are living to address issues, clear up any confusion and avoid a lifetime of misunderstandings.

Buffet makes an annual gift to four of his family foundations every Thanksgiving, and this year, he presented a letter on his plans to distribute his wealth. Both Buffet and his late wife Susan believed extremely wealthy parents should be careful to leave their children with enough money to “do anything, but not enough that they can do nothing.”

The three Buffet heirs will not inherit his entire fortune, but they have been put in charge of donating 99.5% of it.

Buffet also has wisdom for families with more modest assets. He said there should be ongoing conversations about the estate plan as soon as children are old enough to understand the concept of an estate plan and the family’s financial situation.

Heirs should be given an opportunity to ask questions. If their suggestions are reasonable, they should be adopted, he said. All three of Buffet's children had questions. Buffet said he often took those requested changes and incorporated them into his will.

The goal is to avoid confusion about decisions while you are still living and can resolve the issues. Many families are pulled apart when parents pass, and their decisions about wealth distribution come as a surprise, creating turbulence among siblings.

While the average American inheritance is more like $46,000, according to the most recent Federal Reserve data (2016-20919), and not the $10 million left to the Buffet children from their mother’s estate, the advice is still good.

Buffet also discussed making sure his children knew early on they would always be asked for donations from sincere people and those who are not. His will contains a provision requiring all three children to approve any donations made by the foundation. They must also give an immediate and definitive response to grant seekers, allowing them to say no because one of their siblings would never agree to the request.

While most people don’t face the challenges of overseeing billions in inheritance or foundations, Buffet’s wisdom in investment and company building appears to extend to his parenting. For the rest of us, a meeting with an experienced estate planning attorney to create an estate plan is the start of a plan to distribute our wealth among heirs.

Families, especially those with many children and the means to be philanthropic, often hold regular meetings with their estate planning attorney and other advisors to discuss wills, trusts and charitable giving to create a legacy.

Reference: yahoo! finance (Nov. 26, 2024) “Warren Buffet has advice for parents on inheritance planning”

How to Include Digital Life in Your Estate Plan

The same conveniences of digital life, from making bank deposits on the phone, posting photos instantly and accessing investment accounts wherever you are in the world, create headaches for executors and heirs if no plans are made for a “digital afterlife.” A recent article from The Minnesota Star Tribune, “When death planning, don’t forget to account for your digital life,” explains how to plan ahead.

In the past, when someone died, their executor and family members would work together to go through paper financial statements, bills and property ownership documents. There would usually be a shoebox or a cabinet somewhere in the house with relevant documents. The search is far more complex today, with information locked inside a computer or cell phone.

The right kind of authorizations are needed for each platform. You can create directives for Google, Yahoo!, Apple and Facebook to request a copy of the account contents. This way, the executor doesn’t have to deal with passwords, encryptions, or data privacy laws.

• Google has an Inactive Account Manager, which notifies someone else if you stop using Google products for a designated period of time. You choose which data you want to share, and the contact receives a link for a download.
• Apple has Legacy Contacts, allowing you to add a contact for your Apple ID who will have access to your Apple account.
• Facebook also has a legacy contact who can manage your main profile if it is memorialized after your death. Friends and family members can leave memories and comments on your page. Another option is to allow the legacy contact to delete your account.

Most states today have laws concerning digital assets. Your estate planning attorney will be able to help you plan for what you want to happen to your digital assets and how to make this task easier for your digital executor.

A federal data privacy law known as the Stored Communication Act protects the disclosure of a person’s digital communications without their consent. You’ll want to have a consent form created by an experienced estate planning attorney to allow online platforms to disclose your digital assets. Think of it as a HIPAA form for digital assets.

Create a complete inventory of all digital property and online accounts and how to access them. Use an electronic list, an encrypted secure list, or a notebook, whatever method works best for you. Make sure to tell your digital executor how your information is stored.

Some platforms will not release data unless family members pursue the matter in court if no legacy contact was named and no consent form has been completed. Don’t count on calling the company out on social media or contacting the press to take up the fight on your behalf as a solution.

If you have data stored only in the cloud, consider backing up your data (content) on a local computer, external hard drive, or a memory stick. Accessing this will be easier than taking Microsoft to court.

While preparing for your digital afterlife, ensure that your will, power of attorney, trust documents and authorizations are current. Have an estate planning attorney create authorization paperwork; if you don’t already have a digital consent form, create one.

Reference: The Minnesota Star Tribune (Nov. 11, 2024) “When death planning, don’t forget to account for your digital life”

Make Life Easier for Heirs: Get Your Estate Organized

The holiday season is not when most of us think about death and dying. However, we do think about gift-giving. Estate planning is a gift for your family. Wouldn’t you prefer a package wrapped in festive paper and decorated with ribbons than an unwrapped item hastily stuffed into a shopping bag? The article “5 Things to Do Now to Make Your Estate Simpler for Your Heirs” from The Wall Street Journal offers a starting point.

Update all estate planning documents. Failing to update estate planning documents, including finalizing new documents, can wreak havoc on families. One example is a woman who took about two decades to update her will and then died before signing the papers. Her will included giving assets to stepchildren she hadn’t seen in more than twenty years. Her adult children are spending thousands to have the new will enforced by a judge, even though it’s unsigned.

When did you last examine the beneficiary designations for all your financial accounts? Life insurance, retirement accounts, bank and investment accounts, pensions and other financial accounts provide an opportunity to name a person or people to receive the assets directly upon your death. If your old college pal is the person you thought of when you started your 401(k) with your first job, your wife may not appreciate his receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars upon your death.

Named beneficiaries receive assets directly from the financial institution and do not go through probate. No matter what language is in a will or even a living trust, these assets belong to the people you named to receive them. You should have a list of all of these accounts and know who the beneficiaries are.

Digital assets are now part of estate plans. There are very few people today who don’t have digital assets. These include the content in your emails, photos stored on the cloud, websites, content on social media platforms, online businesses and anything you’ve created online. Most people don’t understand the Terms of Service Agreement they make between the service provider and themselves when they click on the link to approve the TOSA. However, this is a legally binding contract delineating what the platform owns and what the user owns. You may not own books, movies, or other digital assets; you might have rented them unknowingly.

Digital assets need to be organized for heirs, since there isn’t a paper trail for them to follow like in previous decades. You can create a spreadsheet, use a password manager or a pad of paper.  However, there should be a means for your digital executor to identify and access your digital assets.

Some digital platforms allow you to name a “legacy” contact who can take care of your digital assets after you’ve passed. You’ll need to go through each of your digital assets to find out which platform has this or related features. If it seems annoying, imagine how your heirs will feel trying to untangle your digital assets.

If your estate includes cryptocurrency, this is especially important. Millions of dollars of crypto have been lost because people have failed to secure their pass keys or digital wallets.

Deal with personal property now. Especially if you have multiple heirs, hoping the kids “work things out” could be a recipe for disaster. Make a list of your personal items and who you want to receive what. In some families, this is relatively straightforward. However, your adult children will be grieving after your passing and vulnerable to disputes. Another tactic: give items while you’re living.

Get your estate planning documents organized. Create a three-ring binder with all essential documents. Contact information for your estate planning attorney, CPA and financial advisor should be provided. Include a list of bills paid online, like utility, mortgage, taxes, health insurance, car insurance, etc. Also included are Power of Attorney, Health Care Power of Attorney, Living Will, Trusts and other estate planning documents. Tell your executor and adult children where the folder is.

An organized estate plan helps avoid family conflict. Having documents prepared, property assigned and accounts recorded all takes time. However, by doing so, you’ve minimized the work for loved ones and minimized reasons for quarrels during what will already be a difficult time.

Reference: The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 14, 2024) “5 Things to Do Now to Make Your Estate Simpler for Your Heirs”