We've administered multiple family members estates ranging from just like your grandparents (easy) to full on probate nightmare. Such good advice here. We've done most of this even only being in our early 50s.
My mother passed away nearly eight years ago. From that time my father has been adrift. He is leaving a mess to untangle. He doesn’t listen to his three children, his pastor, his friends, his caregivers or his doctors. He won’t verbalize his grief. He has had a wonderful life and in the last few years because he doesn’t want to admit that he is failing physically and mentally. My younger sister is estranged from because of his overt politics and he won’t recognize this tenuous relationship essentially cutting her out of the will.
Any attempt to discuss legacy with joy and love is avoided by him altogether.
Previously he has threatened to cut myself - his son - and his other daughter out of the will. Fortunately my older sister and I forced our father to make us co-trustees because he was not paying bills insisting that he should be handling all his financial matters. We are both trying to get a hold of this financial mess while health care costs and two mortgages and home equity loans essentially destroy everything he and my late mother built.
Please don’t cry for me and my sisters. This mess was self-imposed.
To bring clarity to all, my father and his older children had nearly 20 years of examples of what not to do in estate planning from other extended family members failed efforts. Loss of assets, loss of financial control derailed efforts of building generational wealth.
There are people all across the world who have suffered much worse than my father physically but the mental strain he is leaving on everyone is not one I would wish on anyone.
If there is an example of what not to do in estate planning it would be how my father is currently conducting estate planning.
The hubris of my father will likely destroy any attempt of minor generational wealth for his family.
This really resonates with me. My parents never talked about the difficult subjects either. I think for many people, if they didn’t speak it out loud, somehow it felt less real. When my dad passed, things continued more or less as they always had. But after my mom passed, it became an overwhelming maze of paperwork, missing documents, forgotten accounts, and decades of saved papers from a time before anything was digital. It was exhausting and emotionally draining on top of the grief itself. Posts like this are such an important reminder that simple planning is an act of love. It gives families the space to grieve, remember, and celebrate a life instead of spending those first fragile weeks untangling logistics. Thank you for writing this so thoughtfully.
Does a TOD for brokerage accounts work the same as a TOD for real estate? In other words, do the brokerage TOD’s transfer immediately upon death like the real estate TOD’s do?
We've administered multiple family members estates ranging from just like your grandparents (easy) to full on probate nightmare. Such good advice here. We've done most of this even only being in our early 50s.
Thanks for the kind words, Christina. Glad that your ahead of the game.
My mother passed away nearly eight years ago. From that time my father has been adrift. He is leaving a mess to untangle. He doesn’t listen to his three children, his pastor, his friends, his caregivers or his doctors. He won’t verbalize his grief. He has had a wonderful life and in the last few years because he doesn’t want to admit that he is failing physically and mentally. My younger sister is estranged from because of his overt politics and he won’t recognize this tenuous relationship essentially cutting her out of the will.
Any attempt to discuss legacy with joy and love is avoided by him altogether.
Previously he has threatened to cut myself - his son - and his other daughter out of the will. Fortunately my older sister and I forced our father to make us co-trustees because he was not paying bills insisting that he should be handling all his financial matters. We are both trying to get a hold of this financial mess while health care costs and two mortgages and home equity loans essentially destroy everything he and my late mother built.
Please don’t cry for me and my sisters. This mess was self-imposed.
To bring clarity to all, my father and his older children had nearly 20 years of examples of what not to do in estate planning from other extended family members failed efforts. Loss of assets, loss of financial control derailed efforts of building generational wealth.
There are people all across the world who have suffered much worse than my father physically but the mental strain he is leaving on everyone is not one I would wish on anyone.
If there is an example of what not to do in estate planning it would be how my father is currently conducting estate planning.
The hubris of my father will likely destroy any attempt of minor generational wealth for his family.
This really resonates with me. My parents never talked about the difficult subjects either. I think for many people, if they didn’t speak it out loud, somehow it felt less real. When my dad passed, things continued more or less as they always had. But after my mom passed, it became an overwhelming maze of paperwork, missing documents, forgotten accounts, and decades of saved papers from a time before anything was digital. It was exhausting and emotionally draining on top of the grief itself. Posts like this are such an important reminder that simple planning is an act of love. It gives families the space to grieve, remember, and celebrate a life instead of spending those first fragile weeks untangling logistics. Thank you for writing this so thoughtfully.
Does a TOD for brokerage accounts work the same as a TOD for real estate? In other words, do the brokerage TOD’s transfer immediately upon death like the real estate TOD’s do?