Notice To People That Do Not Have a Will

If you do not have a will, you are delegating a costly mess to your survivors. Everyone dies. Some very late in life and some too soon and unexpectedly. The problem is that very few really know when they will die.

I once had a client that was dying and when I found out he didn’t have a will, I quickly arranged with him and his wife to have an attorney meet with him in the hospital. The attorney then went back to his office, had the will typed and came back a couple of hours later with a notary and had the will properly executed. The client died three hours later.

I once did an estate plan for a couple in their early 50s and when they said they would hold off doing anything, I suggested the husband get a $2 million term policy as a stop-gap to give them time to think it through. Three weeks after getting the policy, he dropped dead jogging in his NYC neighborhood.

I spoke with a client last week who is the health care proxy for a friend and the physicians asked him if they should do anything to prolong the life of his terminally ill friend who was their patient. He asked me what I thought he should do since he never discussed with the person what they might want to be done if he was ever in that position. Note that there is no surviving immediate family and my friend’s personal religious beliefs are contrary to the physicians’ recommendations.

Things happen! Nothing beats being prepared. And even when you are prepared, death or a sudden disability causes confusion, uncertainty and ambiguity. However, being prepared is a first step to settling an estate, arranging for end-of-life maintenance or care for a suddenly disabled person.

Now, I do significant estate tax planning, but the most important work I do in that area is for families with infants and young children and for them, I do estate planning without the word “tax” in the middle of those words. Estate planning for them is to have a will that provides for guardians for their children in the terrible situation of an untimely death of both parents, sufficient life insurance, a regular stipend for the guardians to cover their added costs and instructions when the children could have direct access to the funds. Not much time by me and I usually do not charge for this, yet these moments are my most satisfying. And then I pray that all these efforts were wasted.

This is important stuff. On Thursday I will be presenting a webinar for the East Brunswick Public Library on Getting Your Affairs in Order and will cover the above and many other situations in a fast-paced program and attendees will also be provided with a 90-page tool kit. It is free but you must pre-register: Click here for more information or to register

Also, maybe you don’t want to do anything about it; but suppose it was your spouse that died. Would you know how to handle things? Get it done!

If you have any tax, business, financial, leadership or management issues you want to discuss please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].