Sad to say I’ve still not fully sorted out the estate, multiple reasons. I’m the only child, the property isn’t close and there were shall we say ‘complications’ in trying to sort things out let alone the pandemic and harsh travel resrictions.
I visited today - somehow last year’s brambles went crazy despite chemical measures (reluctantly) which were completely ineffective.
Spotted a solitary daffodil my mother would have planted - all the others had been covered by brambles so I spent many hours cutting the brambles back - no gloves in the house so I have numerous cuts and thorns to remove.
It was not only cathartic but sobering. I really either need to liquidate the property as an asset (currently a drain due to council and utility bill charges) or maybe relocate to there?
The property is really a ‘doer upper’ as so many things need updating - acceptable for me but there’s no way I could rent it as it stands.
What does this boil down to? Simply that verging on 60 I’m at least 3/4 way through my life, probably less in reality and it’s probably time to accept I just need to retire, enjoy maybe 10 years of active life before I’m bloody useless for another 10.
As I said simply sobering when you feel about 28 at heart.
The additional depressing component was speaking to the chap next door to mum and dad’s house. He and his wife are probably 15 years younger overall compared to mum and dad. He told me his wife who I knew had a few unrelated illnesses had rapidly progressive dementia and that he might have a major decision on care to make in coming weeks
Thoroughly awful. You might live to a good age but absolutely no guarantee you’ll me mentally up for it even if your body is.
Their son and I were very good friends, he was a little younger but sustained a life changing industrial injury, couldn’t work and died far too young.
Having had to work out and sort out my father’s estate and then ten years after that my mother’s estate, I know how complicated and even difficult it is to find out where everything is and who needs to know what has occurred. So my wife and I have a shared “death book” that our children know about and in there we have written all the things that our Executor (which is likely the one of us who survives the first death) needs to know. This isn’t totally comprehensive and isn’t full of unnecessary detail but has the basics. And if I live longer than my wife then I will update it to include more things my daughters are likely to need to know.
Yes. I think this is the final irony of life. I don’t identify with people in my own age group at all. I feel I have more in common with people around 30 or so. This is from afar though. Just a state of mind I’m sure - an illusion. If I started actually mixing with people around 30 then no doubt it would quickly become apparent that I actually had very little in common with them at all.
This sort of thing is tragic and very sad and disturbing. It makes one realise that one should make the most of every day and stop fretting about things that in the end are totally unimportant - such as hi-fi!
We don’t have any children but we have considered something like this for ourselves for when, inevitably, one of us will be left on our own. It’s not something one wants to think about but when the time comes I know from experience in dealing with the deaths of both our parents it could save an awful lot of hassle. Especially when at such times one isn’t in a fit state of mind to deal effectively with such things.
I have a few practical things. I’ve just completed a redraft of my “living will”, it’s not legally binding, but does give my LPA attorney an idea of my wishes.
I have an asset spreadsheet which has the details of pensions, investments and savings accounts and the contact for my IFA.
I have a list of contact names and numbers so that again my attorney can contact people who can notify all of my friend groups if anything happens to me.
I have a spreadsheet called “things that are more expensive than you think” which itemises things like the stereo, the glass art and the wine which should be properly valued for probate and sale.
It’s quite a morbid thing to do, but when my wife died (at 56) she’d left me a set of files with all the account details etc which made my life a lot easier. (We both hate(d) paperwork and had never got our acts together to consolidate our finances, we still had her house while living in mine (she’d been ill for years and as my house had 28 steps to access it we kept hers in case she couldn’t manage the steps). We just paid the bills on our respective houses and whoever did the shopping, booked the night out or the holiday picked up the bill for that.)
Worth noting if you are not already aware: You can give away a total of £3,000 worth of gifts each tax year without them being added to the value of your estate. This is known as your ‘annual exemption’.
You can give gifts or money up to £3,000 to one person or split the £3,000 between several people.
You can carry any unused annual exemption forward to the next tax year - but only for one tax year.
Another thing you have to think about is passwords etc. And not just after death. A friend of mine had a long operation and as is often the case for older people, he suffered from cognitive decline (ie dementia) for several months. During this time he couldn’t remember his Apple ID or any passwords/passcodes associated with his online presence. I helped his wife get some of this back, but it was difficult and only partially successful. Writing them all onto paper and putting them into a secure place, like a bank or a safe before these life events would save all this aggravation.
At the simplest level, my wife and I use the same passcode for all our PCs, tablets and phones. This doesn’t apply to my work laptop but she won’t be interested in that anyway (and my employer could get in if they needed to).
That prompts me observe that executors will need to know that any spreadsheet or other summaries exist, and where to find them. Also, somewhere is needed a record of passwords etc to get into anything of importance, such as computer, and info for relevant parties as to where to find. All could, of course, be recorded and stored with the will - and people of courseneed to know that exist, and where.
I tried to get my remaining daughter involved when her sibling died a few years back.
Come on. We will sort her quite complicated affairs out together and it will help you when my time comes. But she couldn’t face it. I will have a word with the local solicitor and seek guidance.
No the solicitor is not interested so she is on her own.
Myself and my Partner have just updated our wills, and the solicitor left us both a copy of an A4 booklet, where you can record passwords, account details etc, its a useful little document.
Very good advice @davidhendon. Yes modern technology can all too easily conspire against us and this usually seems to happen when times are fraught for one reason or another. A few months ago I couldn’t get our TV to display the picture from our Blu ray player. I tried everything I could think of - all connections, menu settings and so on but to no avail. In the end I unplugged both and then plugged back in and it all worked OK. This was frustrating enough but a situation involving illness or worse and being unable to access important information would really be a nightmare scenario for me.
The danger we always felt with this is that if it ever fell into the wrong hands, as for example in a burglary, then that would obviously be a major compromise to your security. We have written down some things in coded form, eg disguised as other types of information.
That’s a good shout, and too be honest, while we both get it filled in, haven’t given it a great deal of thought where we would store our respective copies, I suppose one option would be back at the solicitor, am open to suggestions.
You can give away more than £3k per year if you take advantage of all the exemptions.
Eg. Regular payments of any amount can be made as long as they can be shown to be ‘regular’ and come from ‘income’ , rather than capital. There are many Potentially Exempt Transactions you can use.
where we would store our respective copies, I suppose one option would be back at the solicitor, am open to suggestions.