If you were to go on vacation for an extended period of time you would have to leave behind instructions to whoever was watching your home and otherwise looking after your affairs. You would invariably go through a checklist in your mind and leave behind all of the relevant information that the person handling your affairs would need.
A similar dynamic exists when you are engaged in estate and incapacity planning. You never know what the future holds, and there is some practical information that your representative would need to be able to take care of things.
It is a good idea to create a computer file and/or notebook of some kind that contains all of this relevant information. You know better than anyone what your representative would need access to in the event of your incapacity or death.
It is more or less a matter of exercising common sense while taking the time to think it all through. However, if you want to be certain that nothing has been overlooked simply engage a good estate planning lawyer to assist you.
When you do have all the relevant information compiled you are going to want to let your representatives know where it can be found. Obviously there is a lot of very sensitive data there are so you want to store it in a place that is completely safe and secure so it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Planning ahead for the inevitable is an exercise in pragmatically making things as simple as possible for your loved ones during a difficult time. Making sure that your representative has the necessary information to do his or her job is certainly part of the equation.
Alan Augulis, Estate Planning Attorney
Latest posts by Alan Augulis, Estate Planning Attorney (see all)
- Trust Administration 101 for the First-Time Trustee - August 23, 2018
- Do I Need a Medicaid Planning Attorney? - June 11, 2018
- Can an Incapacity Planning Attorney Help Me Plan for the Possibility of Alzheimer’s? - May 1, 2018
