Putting your house in order:
Despite popular belief, the size of your estate should play no role in deciding whether or not you need to plan your estate. If you have assets then you have an estate, and what you do with your estate warrants your serious consideration.
We will all leave the mortal coil sooner or later, and that’s a fact, but the sad truth is that this unfortunate event may take place suddenly, and in unforeseen circumstances.
An Ancient Chinese Proverb has it that the best time to plant a tree is forty years ago, but that the second best time is now. If you have not already planned your estate and left your affairs in good order, now is the time to do so.
I have given this advice to clients many times over the years and the almost invariable feedback from clients and friends who have rolled up their sleeves and taken positive steps to put their house in order, reflect a sense of deep satisfaction once they have taken the time and trouble to perform the exercise of, amongst other things, committing their assets to paper and, in an alarming number of cases, making belated provision in a Will for what should happen to those assets
Apart from the satisfaction of knowing that your affairs are in order, there are a number of other highly persuasive reasons why you need to knuckle down and do this. These include
• Ensuring that somebody knows exactly what your assets are, and where they are located. A sobering consideration is that if an investment or similar asset is overlooked by your executor, there is no guarantee that this will automatically be brought to the attention of your executor and it too often happens that unclaimed assets ultimately become forfeit to the State, surely an unintended consequence for anybody!
• If you do not leave clear instructions concerning what your assets are, and where they are, you leave your family members with the extremely traumatic and unpleasant task of having to piece things together after you have gone.
• Poor ‘estate housekeeping’ will also have the effect of substantially delaying the winding up of your estate, to the detriment of your beneficiaries.
The bottom line is, do yourself and your loved ones a big favour and set aside probably no more than a couple of hours clearly recording what you own and, if you have not done so already, giving serious thought to the persons who you would like to benefit from your estate once you are gone.
In part 2, I will deal with Wills which are, self-evidently, the foundation upon which the distribution of your estate to intended beneficiaries is built.
Mike Matthews