16W // Real Estate & Home Builders Guide // January 2017
Tips for getting your estate organized
By Ilyce Glink
and Samuel J. Tamkin
Tribune Content Agency
Q
: My mom just passed away
just shy of 105 years of age
and her estate is a mess. I don’t
want to make the same unin-
formed errors with my estate,
so I need to plan and execute
documents for my estate. Can you
give me any suggestions?
: First of all, our condolences
on your loss. Sometimes it
takes life-changing events to
make us realize the importance
of getting our finances and other
personal matters in order. We
think it’s a great thing for you
to realize the need for you to
order your estate and plan for the
future. There are various under-
lying matters that come to mind
when we hear people talk about
getting their estate in order.
We’d like to start with a pretty
simple issue that can really
cause people trouble. Before
we even talk about wills, trusts
and other legal documents you
might need or want for your
estate, we’d suggest you start
with your personal effects and
personal financial organization.
If you think that having an estate
well-organized from a legal
perspective is all you need, you’re
going to fight an uphill battle.
You also need to have good
organization in your documents
and files.
When Sam’s mother died, we
discovered she had taken the time
to organize all of her personal
documents in a file cabinet.
The documents were very well
organized. She had her credit card
statements, bank statements, auto
title and everything you would
need to know and find in one
place, with neatly labeled files.
It certainly made it easy to find
everything he needed to settle her
affairs after she died. It was easy
to contact her banks, credit card
companies, medical providers
and insurance companies with the
information she left behind.
What might take you a few
hours or even a half a day to sort
through and organize might take
your children or the executor of
A
THINKSTOCK IMAGE
your estate weeks, months or
even years. So that’s one place
where the time you put in will
certainly make things easier for
tomorrow and in the future, not to
mention your day-to-day financial
management.
The next step in organizing
your life includes going through
your personal effects and making
sure you know what you have and
what you need. While you might
be the best organized person
in the world, if you save every
magazine you’ve ever received
and collect stuff so that your
home is filled in every corner, it
won’t be a simple thing for your
children to take care of your
estate and clean things out of your
home. If you can go through what
you have and can decide now
what to do with what you own,
you might lift a great burden on
your family later on.
Recently, Sam has scanned
in old family photos that have
been sitting in boxes for years.
Whether we keep those boxes
isn’t important now since the
precious family photos have
been digitized and distributed to
family members.
But photos aren’t the only
things people keep. You may have
boxes of old school projects (for
yourself, your parents or your
children), art assignments and
other items our kids make for us
when they’re little. Some people
will take pictures of those items
and then discard the original
items. Whether that is right for
you would be up to you, but it’s
all a process and you may want to
make it a family night activity.
As you decide what you need
to keep, what you want to keep,
what you want to sell or give
away or what you want to throw
out, you’ll likely be making your
home less cluttered and easier
to live in. You might also lift a
burden that you might have had
in keeping all those items so long.
Having said all that, your
next step is to make sure that
what you own gets passed down
according to your wishes. If you
have a small estate, you don’t
need anything complicated.
If we assume that you have a
home, bank accounts, retirement
accounts and a car, you need to
make sure that on any retirement
account or life insurance policy
or annuity, you designate a
beneficiary on those accounts. If
you do, those types of accounts
will automatically go to the
designated beneficiary upon
your death. (They will need to
proof that they are entitled to the
accounts by delivering a copy of
your death certificate.)
In terms of your home, you
can place the property and other
personal effects into a living
trust that would allow for the
transfer of ownership of those
items automatically upon your
death to the person designated
in the living trust. You can also
have a Last Will and Testament
document created that indicates
who you want to get your home
and personal effects upon your
death.
In either case, it’s better to
have a legal document in place
to make those decisions than
not having any document at all.
Whether you decide to have a
living trust and a will or just
a will may depend on your
particular situation, but you can
talk to an estate planning attorney
more about the benefits of each
and what would be better for you
today.
In some situations, you
might be able to arrange for all
of your accounts to transfer to
your family members upon your
death and to have the title to your
home and car in such a way as to
transfer those as well upon your
death, but these methods some-
times have their pitfalls when the
value of homes and the total value
of estates are higher.
It’s a bit too much to go into
in this column, but you should
go over what you own, what you
have in life insurance, what your
home is worth and how much
profit you might have if you sold
the home today, and how much
you have of value elsewhere to
make a good decision as to how
much legal documentation you
need in place to organize your
finances and estate.
We hope this helps get you
started. For more details, consult
with an estate planner or attorney.
Ilyce Glink is the creator of
an 18-part webinar+ebook series
called “The Intentional Investor:
How to be wildly successful
in real estate,” as well as the
author of many books on real
estate. She also hosts the “Real
Estate Minute,” on her YouTube
channel. Samuel J. Tamkin is
a Chicago-based real estate
attorney. Contact Ilyce and Sam
through her website, ThinkGlink.
com.