What is the most frequent cause of a difficult estate administration?
If you have done any estate planning, your goal was probably to make the administration of your estate as easy as possible for your family. But while having a will or trust can be helpful, your estate might still be difficult to administer if your paper life and your actual life are out of sync with one another.
What is your "paper life"? It is the deeds, titles, and ownership documents for house, cars, and other assets. It's your marriage license or divorce decree. It's the contracts that you have entered. It's the loans you have taken or co-signed.
For example, if you want to treat someone like a spouse even though you are not married to him or her, you need to write that down. If you want to let someone live in a house even though he or she is not on the deed and doesn't have a rental agreement, you need to write that down. If you want to treat money that you gave to a kid as a loan (or want a loan to be forgiven), you need to write that down.
In this video, Denver estate planning attorney Dan McKenzie of The McKenzie Law Firm, LLC (303-578-2745, www.themckenziefirm.com) discusses how conflicting documents that are out of sync with how you actually are living can make administering your estate very difficult, even if you do have a well written will or trust.
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- Visit our estate planning page to learn more about how proactively thinking through your estate plan can protect you and your family, minimize hassle, lower the chance of family discord, and minimize or eliminate taxes.
- Get a copy of our estate planning checklist to see where you currently stand.
- Learn more by reading our blog or watching our videos.
