You’re preparing for the end of your life. You’re taking all the steps to make sure everything is squared away, including planning your cremation in Tallahassee, FL. You are definitely doing all the right things to make the administrative part of your death easier for your family.
However, there are some steps you should make sure you take when you are getting your will or trust in order to make sure that your family doesn’t implode after your death because of the way your appointed an executor or trustee or dispersed your assets.
In recent years, fighting among family members about estate matters have followed the deaths of musician Tom Petty (2017), comedian and actor Robin Williams (2015), musician B. B. King (2015), disc jockey Casey Kasem (2014), and actress Audrey Hepburn (1993).
Much of the fighting and ill will has been related to how the will or trust left by these very talented and intelligent people named executors or trustees, how inheritances were split between beneficiaries, and, most notably, who was not named as trustees or beneficiaries and vague wording that made it unclear who was entitled to what in the estate.
There are some very simple steps you can take to ensure that this does not happen with your family or your estate when you die.
One of the documents that you should keep with (and, to be legally-binding, specifically refer to in) your will or your trust is a Personal Property Memorandum that lists how you want personal assets like furniture, vehicles, jewelry, family heirlooms and the like distributed among your family members. You should sign and date it. It does not have to be signed in front of witnesses and it does not have to notarized.
These items don’t typically get enumerated in wills or trusts, which deal with real property (personal and business) and financial assets. You should review your Personal Property Memorandum regularly to keep it current. If you change it, you should destroy any previous versions and replace them with the newly signed and dated version with your updates.
You should also include a Letter of Instruction with your will or trust. A Letter of Instruction lets you communicate all your wishes for your estate. Though this is not a legally-binding document, it enables you to communicate, in your own words, directly with your family after your death as to what your estate contains, what you intend to be done with your estate, and how you intend your estate to be distributed.
What should your Letter of Instruction include? It should basically be a well-defined roadmap for your final affairs. Items you should have in your Letter of Instruction include:
- Location of your important documents (wills, trusts, property titles, insurance policies, etc.)
- Funeral home where you planned your funeral and your final disposition
- Cremations services wishes
- Comprehensive list of financial assets
- Pension or profit-sharing plan information
- Location of last tax return and Social Security statements
- Location of safety deposit boxes and keys
- Distribution of insurance policy payouts, trust provisions, and, if applicable, business succession summaries
Because this is you talking to those you will leave behind, you need to be detailed and specific so there will be questions about what you want or what you mean. These questions – or the lack of any information at all – are often the source of family inheritance rifts.
For information about planning for cremation in Tallahassee, FL, including grief resources, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Lifesong Funerals & Cremations is here to assist you. You can visit our funeral home at 20 S. Duval St., Quincy, FL 32351, or you can call us today at (850) 627-1111.
