Post by dancingirl21 on Apr 9, 2024 20:40:51 GMT -5
My younger brother recently passed and we are dealing with getting all his accounts closed/transferred, selling his house, selling his car, etc. and it has been a ton of work for my parents. They have hired an attorney to help, but the work has been largely on them. My brother did not have a will or trust. He had been in a long term relationship, but wasn't married and did not have kids. He knew he was dying (we didn't know until there was nothing else to be done), but didn't or couldn't put together any info for us. My parents are having to search through his paperwork and mail to even figure out what assets he had and where they are. His partner has helped some too, but he isn't sure where all the assets are either. It got me thinking about my end of life planning.
DH and I have a will and trust. With us being married, everything goes to each other unless we happen to pass at the same time. DH's older brother has been named as our financial power of attorney, and he and his wife were named as the people that would take our kids.
Even though we have a will and trust, no one but DH and I knows where it is (not helpful, obviously). We need to get his brother a copy, along with all other pertinent info. If you have done something similar, do you give the person you have named all of your passwords, etc. to all your banking/financial/loan-type sites? How did you do that? Electronically or printed in a binder or something? What else am I not thinking of that someone would need? We will give him the name of our attorney, all asset info, all loan info.
I encourage everyone to think about this, as we are going through it with a young person. It has been really hard for my parents to work through, during a time when they should just be grieving their son.
To answer your questions I can tell you what my parents have done - I have a copy of their will, a business card from their lawyer, and passwords to their safe with knowledge of the spare keys as well. In the safe is every document I could possibly need to access. They have passwords, bank info, any contacts that will be useful. I don't have to store it at my house and they can keep updating things as they change, but I know where to get the information after they pass.
Does your county or state have a wills office that will keep copies for you? My dad’s will is with me, the lawyer that drew it up and the county office that deals with estates/wills.
We have not really done any of this ourselves. We should but we don’t have kids or nieces or nephews and we aren’t sure where we’d leave anything we’d have besides to each other.
I do have all of ours and my dad’s bank/house/car info in one big container in the closet with log in info etc so someone could find that.
ETA my Ils have a death binder with all this info at their house
Post by countthestars on Apr 9, 2024 21:11:47 GMT -5
I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you for the reminder. We are currently working on our will and trust, but it should have been done a long time ago. I like the idea of having everything in one locked place - I know that my parents have one, but would definitely have to search for it if something happened to them.
My dad mailed my sister and I copies of his will/trusts, plus copies of keys we might need, a listing of all bank accounts etc.
DH keeps a document for me with passwords and how to access all financial stuff/all our accounts (he does a lot of investments/trading). I’ve told my sister where our will information is in our house but I really need to make a copy and send it to her and my dad as well. Also think of things like passwords to social media, phone passcodes, etc
I have a copy of my parents will and they have a copy of our will and trust docs. Passwords are updated so much that I've just told them where to look and they've done the same for us.
It does help that my parents and I have the same FA and he knows it will pass to me. And years ago they made sure to consolidate bank accounts.
Post by starburst604 on Apr 10, 2024 6:11:11 GMT -5
I am so sorry for your loss. I’ve been thinking in similar veins now that I am separated. I’ve started scanning all pertinent info into Google Drive (life insurance, bank accounts, retirement accounts, car loan etc) and plan to share it with my sister. I will keep it updated as things change and should she ever need all my financial info it will be right there along with my will once I update it post divorce.
Also, I appreciate this reminder. Our stuff is squared away but not shared with anyone, and my parents occasionally tell me tidbits of information that go in one ear and out the other, so I need to ask them to put everything in one spot.
I am so sorry for your loss. I was an estate executor last year and it really is a gift to the grieving if things are at least somewhat in place/traceable. (My aunt was 100% paper based and pretty organized so that made it relatively “easy” for me.)
I’m sorry for your loss. One thing that was very helpful in dealing with the estate I just handled was she gave me a list of all of her bank accounts with a recent statement and her contact there. It would have been helpful to have her email password and Apple sign on so I could shut those down without the hassle I went through. She also told me where she kept her taxes (which is another way to cross check accounts) and a list of items with who she wanted them to go to (not usually included in wills)
Post by W.T.Faulkner on Apr 10, 2024 7:39:33 GMT -5
I'm so sorry for the loss of your brother. That is awful and heartbreaking.
We just did our wills this year, after putting it off for some time. I haven't yet given my sister (who would be financial POA, my medical POA, and our kids' legal guardian) copies of anything. I know I was listed as the same for her, but she also hasn't given me anything yet either, so we're even.
I am grateful for, albeit sometimes annoyed by, my morbid-ass mother, who makes a regular habit of talking about death, dying, and her wishes, lol. She was left with no direction when her parents died, so she and my dad made a conscious effort to seriously reduce the number of decisions my sister and I will have to make.
My in-laws on the other hand -- well, I've lost sleep thinking about what will happen, and how much we don't know. But they're not changing.
Years ago, my best friend's younger brother died at the age of 24. I was at their house the night he died, and I have this vivid memory of his dad fruitlessly trying to unlock his phone so he could save pictures, find friends' phone numbers, etc. It hadn't occurred to me before then that I would need to share that info with someone, and that my parents and my sister should share theirs with me, too.
Thank you for the reminder. We really need to set up a will. We have discussed it a few times but unfortunately discussions don’t get things done. I’m going to make that my goal for this year and getting all account info/passwords organized and in one place that someone knows about.
Also, as morbid as this is I often think of my friends whose parents have passed and who have had to deal with cleaning out their houses. Seeing the stress of going through so much STUFF it really hits home how I need to keep on top of my own house and not keeping things that really aren’t needed. The additional burden of excess stuff after a death is something I really don’t want my family dealing with.
Post by litskispeciality on Apr 10, 2024 8:53:38 GMT -5
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Just went through a lot of this with my sibling when I was enacted as medical proxy. Please make sure someone in your life has your important info including the name of your employer, your SSN and anything that may be important should you not be able to make your own decisions. My friend is having surgery and she actually told me her phone PW as a back up.
I will say we're super behind on all aspects. DH and I haven't even written down all of our passwords for each other. We have a will (no kids), but no one but the lawyer's office has a copy. Right now everything is split between his parents and my dad should we both pass within so many days of each other, however we'll have to update that at some point. It's also morbid, but I had them add our general burial plans (what town we plan to be buried in) because my DH's family would fight me. We made it so long ago my plans may change depending on circumstances, but I wanted some back up.
I need to get all of my dad's passwords and things. Only good thing we have is an updated POA health and financial. My dad saves all of his passwords in one of those secure systems, so in theory I think we could log in if we needed too?
One tip/work around I got was to have my dad add me to his bank account. I can now transfer money to my account, or pay bills from his account as we both use the same bank. His retirement financial advisor is also wonderful helping us set up back up who can manage the accounts without financial POA, and/or where the money goes should my dad pass before spending it.
Seriously folks get all of these docs updated. Once your medical POA is enacted for whatever reason you can't go back and make changes to financial.
Post by mrsukyankee on Apr 10, 2024 9:07:42 GMT -5
Our country has an office of wills where ours are kept. The people who would benefit or help us in case of injury or death have all been informed where things are. What we need to work on is having a central place with all the passwords. We do have somewhere that has all of our paperwork so that it'll be easy to deal with even w/o passwords.
Thank you for your post and I share my condolences for you and your family.
Passwords change so frequently and so often that our family has been trying to set up some solutions to how best to manage this when we will need to manage it. My BIL set up LastPass for his family and added an account for my MIL (I think you get up to 5). Her stuff is separate and she has her own master password but he knows that password and with it, can access everything, including her TV, notes, all of it. Or at least everything she adds to LastPass. He can also login to LastPass from any computer and access it and use it for any website (so he can be in NY and access her accounts when she is in Florida). It also automatically updates passwords, which is critical.
My parents are a lost cause. I am absolutely blocked from even the suggestion of writing down bank names or expecting any organization in any way. They think it’s rude? Unnecessary? Will hurry their death?
We have a fireproof safe with everything important and my brother has the spare key. He and my SIL would handle everything and take our daughter. I do keep an updated list of passwords in there.
I have a password manager and have a shared vault with H, so he can access some things. Although, I don't think there's anything he would need to access right away and he can get access later with a death certificate.
I do have inactive account manager set up on my Google, so my email, photos, etc would be accessible after a period of inactivity.
I also made a quick reference sheet that lists all our bank accounts, credit cards, and bills and how they are paid. I keep that in a prominent place in our filing cabinet and it's shared with FIL (our executor). He also has a copy of our will, plus there is a copy by our filling cabinet. We have a number key padlock and he already has access so he can get in our house if needed.
This is going to be controversial. Unless you want a different distribution of your assets than the intestate laws, a will doesn’t matter so much.(absent minor children). What what does matter is leaving specific evidence of your assets, debts, SSN, etc. If you do everything online and have no paper trail you are setting up a mess to sort out. The other biggest factor is the people involved. People get ridiculous around death and money.
I probated my dad’s intestate estate at the same time as we were trying to resolve my grandfather’s previously revocable trust. Probate wasn’t fun, but he kept good paper records and things were smooth. In contrast, that trust was a disaster for over a decade.
*thos does not apply to POA, etc. those are important. I just see so many people get caught up on the idea of the will itself when that is often the least necessary part of a smooth transition. In theory a trust should do what most people want a will to do (ie, transfer assets more smoothly) but only if everything is successfully put into it and there is proper upkeep.
sonrisa I agree with you and my sister made this point to avoid dealing with and/or having a conversation with my parents about setting up a will. Probate? No problem! Eventually, they got wills and signed them and it did not deviate from what the law allows for regarding inheritance - bc they have only been married to each other and only have children from the marriage w/o special needs or complicated anything. They decided on a few precious things for who got what for the grandkids. It just kills me that they finally tackled their wills and absolutely refuse to write down any sort of cohesive list of where their money is (banks, retirement, policies). It’s been years. We are expected to “figure it out” and check the mail, I guess? Mostly, they plan to not die or need care. I sound insane but I really think they think planning will cause their death, so not planning will prevent it?
I am dealing with this now after the death of my husband in December. He managed all of our finances and I had just started switching everything from going to his email to a bills only email address I created in early November, so I had a decent handle on where to find everything. I also still had access to his Gmail account so I was able to get in there and watch for any relevant emails. We use LastPass to keep all of our passwords and his parents have shared their information with me as well as I will be the executor of their estate now. I will say, the thing that has been the most annoying are credit cards that were in his name that I was an authorized user on. As soon as you call to report the death, they will shut the card down. That was problematic for us because we used one of those cards to pay nearly everything, so I had to go into all of our accounts and change the credit card information. Our car is in his name only and I haven't done anything about that yet because we only have 6 more payments on it and then I will deal with the DMV on changing the title. He was medically retired from his job and was drawing a pension and so I had to call and report his death there and they sent me a whole heap of paperwork to figure out if any of that comes to me, etc. All of our utilities are in his name and I'm hesitant to call them lest they close the accounts and make me open new ones.
Strictly from a personal point of view, he was young, 45, and we have a 12-year-old daughter, and we never took the time to really sit down and do memory stuff for her. I bought a journal for the two of them to complete, but his health went downhill so quickly we never had the time to complete it (Love Dad and Me and Love Mom and Me). I wish I had more videos and recordings of his voice. I wish I had him leave me a voicemail telling me something nice and saying I love you and I wish I had something similar for our daughter. I wish that he had written letters to our daughter to give to her from him for milestone life events. We also never really discussed what he wanted in terms of a funeral (I did know he wanted to be cremated) so I had to navigate that on my own. At his memorial service I provided notecards to all of the attendees for them to write down memories of him so she can look back on them in the future.
The conversations are hard to have, but don't put them off. Life is unpredictable and nothing is guaranteed.
Post by dancingirl21 on Apr 11, 2024 14:16:29 GMT -5
Thank you, everyone, for your condolences. It's been an unimaginably hard time. I didn't see my brother all that often (a few times a year) but we were close and he was an amazing person. So generous, charitable, loving, kind, smart. I could go on.
I appreciate all of your perspectives. I have a plan to get this all together in the next month or so. DH and I have gone to Europe the last two years and have another trip planned in the fall. We should really have everything in a known spot when we leave our kids with others. Morbid to think, but necessary.
Post by basilosaurus on Apr 14, 2024 10:24:27 GMT -5
I'm sorry about your brother. Sibling death is no fun regardless the surrounding details.
I've wondered lately about this since I do have a multi page document, but while I made it with the military, I think my only proof is paper, and I don't have it.
In my family we have talked about end of wishes as long as I can remember. I don't know if it would pass legal oversight, but I knew my dad's and grandparents wishes when I was 10.
Post by formerlyak on Apr 16, 2024 13:27:34 GMT -5
Didn't want to read without replying. I am very sorry to hear about the loss of your younger brother. I lost mine unexpectedly about a year and a half ago and it was terrible and I still get angry and sad.
We had just lost my dad to cancer so my mom was dealing with that, so I handled all the "business" of closing out my brother's affairs like your parents are doing. It is a LOT. One thing that helped was getting access to his phone so I could easily log in to his accounts and know who to call at each institution to fill them in and see what they needed in terms of a death certificate, letters from the attorney, etc. He luckily had all his passwords saved in his phone and his. Don't know if that will help you all at all, but wanted to throw it out there.