It’s not something anyone wants to think about too much, but I’m often thinking, what happens to my estate once I’m gone? For some, it’s more than just creating a last will and testament. When you’ve got a lot of estates or an estate that needs to be split amongst multiple beneficiaries, estate planning is necessary to do.
While you might be gone, it’s important to do what you can beforehand to look after your loved ones so that they’re not left with too much of a financial mess or disarray whilst grieving your loss.
With that being said, here are some helpful tips to help estate plan for your loved ones once you’re gone.
Speak to your loved ones prior to planning
Before you begin planning your estate or while part way through planning, speak to your loved ones. It’s useful to inform those you love and that you want to benefit from your estate, that they’ll be expecting certain assets or a certain portion. While these are verbal conversations, they are useful to have as an initial discussion.
You might find it useful to have a paper trail with your loved ones. I’d recommend communicating all this via email. It’s a more official way of communicating, despite it feeling a little cold and formal.
Gather your inventory and assets
It’s important to take the scope of your inventory and the current assets you have. Of course, this might change over time, especially if you’re estate planning from a younger age. However, it’s something that will definitely be useful to do to get a clear perspective of what you have available.
If you’re struggling to understand what to do with your assets, hiring a financial advisor might be worth doing in order to make the most out of your investments. I find financial advisors to be highly useful when you don’t know how to manage your money.
Work with estate planning lawyers
Next up, you’ll want to consider estate planning lawyers. This is important to do, especially when it comes to putting the wheels in motion as quickly as possible. A lot of people who do estate planning, do it later on in life, although it’s advisable to do it as soon as you have an estate to your name.
Estate planning lawyers are readily available but it’s important to be mindful of the reputation and effectiveness of the firm.
Update any insurances
Life insurance and other insurances that are required for the protection of your assets are important to update. You want to ensure they continue to tick over while you’re still alive and that they don’t run out before you’ve passed away.
Clear any debt
Finally, if you’re like me, you don’t want to end up with any debt by the time you retire. If anything you want to make sure you’ve cleared this debt with plenty of time to spare. Make sure all your remaining debts are cleared before you hang up your working shoes.
Hopefully, with these tips, you’ll be able to effective plan your estate for when you’re gone.
