Estate Planning, odds and ends

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hotwired

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Jun 9, 2008
Messages
341
Good Morning

My wife and I are retired, 60 years old, pretty much all our ducks in a row other than my investments are way to complex, though I'm working on that slow but sure.

We did just get our wills, etc. tweaked which ended up being around 4K. I've decided the next time we make any changes, I'm educating and doing it myself. I was floored because this cost wasn't an A to Z overhaul, just a review and literally change a couple of names. Brutal. Unnecessary. We have one adult daughter. One home. low 7 figures, and great long term relationships with accountant and CFP. Our daughter has had some growing pains, hence everything goes into a trust if wife and I perish together, which is where our only layer of complexity comes. (Getting a fiduciary trustee and family trustee, creating good documents for people to follow, etc.) Otherwise we have a regularly updated binder with every possible detail, preference, list, letters to our daughter, etc. so there's no doubt or ambiguity.

That said, we recently started getting all our burial and funeral stuff planned. We've got plots, etc. but funeral pre-paid will set us back a little over 21K. I really don't like parting with that much money one year into retirement. (I'm watching SORR like a hawk the first few years!) I'm wondering what some of you have done? Can we maybe set things up, but not actually buy or pay for anything? Or maybe a small deposit? Also, I'd like to make sure our trustees AND daughter have SOME money to use / pay for immediate needs, funeral, etc. without having to worry about waiting to be named PR, probate, etc. What are some simple ideas people use? Maybe have a POD for our daughter on an account, PR on another?

Thanks for any ideas.
 
All of our large investments and all real estate are in a trust with Charles Schwab Trust Co. as trustee. We’re going to let them deal with the heavy lifting. Our bank accounts have our two boys as beneficiaries to give them some money right away.
We have bought our burial plots and arranged for all funeral arrangements, so the boys don’t have to make any decisions. We even planned the funeral mass with readings and music selected.
We review the estate plans every few years and will be making some changes this year.
My father had everything planned and it made his passing so much easier. We’re trying to do the same for our kids.
You’re doing a good thing.
 
hotwired said:
Good Morning

My wife and I are retired, 60 years old, pretty much all our ducks in a row other than my investments are way to complex, though I'm working on that slow but sure.

We did just get our wills, etc. tweaked which ended up being around 4K. I've decided the next time we make any changes, I'm educating and doing it myself. I was floored because this cost wasn't an A to Z overhaul, just a review and literally change a couple of names. Brutal. Unnecessary. We have one adult daughter. One home. low 7 figures, and great long term relationships with accountant and CFP. Our daughter has had some growing pains, hence everything goes into a trust if wife and I perish together, which is where our only layer of complexity comes. (Getting a fiduciary trustee and family trustee, creating good documents for people to follow, etc.) Otherwise we have a regularly updated binder with every possible detail, preference, list, letters to our daughter, etc. so there's no doubt or ambiguity.

That said, we recently started getting all our burial and funeral stuff planned. We've got plots, etc. but funeral pre-paid will set us back a little over 21K. I really don't like parting with that much money one year into retirement. (I'm watching SORR like a hawk the first few years!) I'm wondering what some of you have done? Can we maybe set things up, but not actually buy or pay for anything? Or maybe a small deposit? Also, I'd like to make sure our trustees AND daughter have SOME money to use / pay for immediate needs, funeral, etc. without having to worry about waiting to be named PR, probate, etc. What are some simple ideas people use? Maybe have a POD for our daughter on an account, PR on another?

Thanks for any ideas.
Click to expand...
We don't have burial plots and intend to cremate and dump the ashes however suits the needs of the surviving spouse or descendant. One way to get around the need of prepaid burial costs is to simply have a joint account of maybe $20K or so with whoever will be responsible for the what happens to the deceased. In our case, if we both pass, my son will need to take care of the estate, together with our trust attorney. I have a joint bank account with him as well as a joint investment account with him (it's his money which I gift to him each year). He will have money to handle the estate.
 
My father had carefully moved almost all of his assets into a trust with Schwab as the trustee. When he passed, Schwab folks were great and we had no trouble dividing up/accessing his assets. However, he left some cash in a BoA checking account (used to cover Assisted Living bills). That account still had both my parents as account owners (now both deceased)! Although I was the beneficiary, the account held > $50K, which in Virginia means probate, which was quite an annoyance, although the BoA Estate folks were very helpful but some more than others. One "gotcha" was that the Will my Dad had was a copy (although he said it was the original, we could never find the original, his lawyer was long gone, and when a probate office bureaucrat says it's a copy, well, that's it.). This required me getting an insurance bond. All told, I spent maybe $1K and a few dozen hours filling out probate "inventory" forms, and so forth. Hopefully some useful info here.
 
As executor just paid for my mother’s funeral out of my account and got reimbursed by the estate later on. My brothers and sisters were ok with that arrangement.
 
Specifically for burial, $21k is a lot of money for something that you hope won’t happen for a couple of decades. So much can happen between now and then, including how you want to be remembered.

One option is burial insurance. A low cost policy would get you past the sequence of returns risk. If your portfolio does well you could drop it and if your concerns continue you could keep the policy.
 
... low 7 figures ...

And you are obsessing over some minor legal costs and looking at DIY on some? WADR, you are picking up nickels in the path of an oncoming road roller. There are no do-overs if you or a non-specialist attorney screw up. You are dead before the problem is identified. Is that really a risk worth taking?
 
hotwired said:
Good Morning

My wife and I are retired, 60 years old, pretty much all our ducks in a row other than my investments are way to complex, though I'm working on that slow but sure.

We did just get our wills, etc. tweaked which ended up being around 4K. I've decided the next time we make any changes, I'm educating and doing it myself. I was floored because this cost wasn't an A to Z overhaul, just a review and literally change a couple of names. Brutal. Unnecessary. We have one adult daughter. One home. low 7 figures, and great long term relationships with accountant and CFP. Our daughter has had some growing pains, hence everything goes into a trust if wife and I perish together, which is where our only layer of complexity comes. (Getting a fiduciary trustee and family trustee, creating good documents for people to follow, etc.) Otherwise we have a regularly updated binder with every possible detail, preference, list, letters to our daughter, etc. so there's no doubt or ambiguity.

That said, we recently started getting all our burial and funeral stuff planned. We've got plots, etc. but funeral pre-paid will set us back a little over 21K. I really don't like parting with that much money one year into retirement. (I'm watching SORR like a hawk the first few years!) I'm wondering what some of you have done? Can we maybe set things up, but not actually buy or pay for anything? Or maybe a small deposit? Also, I'd like to make sure our trustees AND daughter have SOME money to use / pay for immediate needs, funeral, etc. without having to worry about waiting to be named PR, probate, etc. What are some simple ideas people use? Maybe have a POD for our daughter on an account, PR on another?

Thanks for any ideas.
Click to expand...


As a former estate attorney we loved when clients did things themselves. Much higher probability of a good probate court case after death. You save a few bucks during life and your family pays much more in the long run. I saw some doozies over the years! "We thought it was such a simple change so my husband just did it himself...." There are a ton of ways to unknowingly screw things up. Doesn't matter to me what you do as I am retired. Just giving you some thoughts on the topic.

Having said that different attorneys can charge significantly different fees for seemingly the exact same work. In some cases the difference is justified - i.e. a brand new attorney is most likely worth the low fees he charges at most. On the other hand I remember "competitors" (with even lesser credentials than me) who charged double what I charged. Their theory was that even if only half as many people hired them they still made the same money and for a lot less work/liability. So, I would never be shy about shopping to two recommended professionals when doing things like estate planning.

I would not prepay the $21k unless you have a medical diagnosis and know that you have a short time to live. Too many variables. People move. People get re-married. People decide to get scattered at sea. Etc....

Yes, POD with some cash to daughter makes sense. Trustee should be able to take over trust accounts very easily if everything is set up right. There are exceptions, that I saw, but it SHOULD be very easy. Banks can create difficulties though from my experience.

Lastly, I recall many cases where a seemingly small change meant that a "restatement of trust" was much better than a simple amendment document. This gives brand new clean documents that utilize the original trust date so that assets do not have to be re-titled. This could be for multiple reasons such as simplicity for the future (one document is much easier to interpret than multiple amendments), new language in the master "forms," and other such reasons. Typically a restatement of trust package would cost less than a brand new one (since likely no trust funding was involved) but some attorneys definitely use it as an opportunity to over-charge (in my opinion).

Best of luck.
 
DW and I each have our own trusts, wills, POA's etc done by an estate attorney in 2025. All major assets except IRAs are in one of our trusts. Checking accounts are POD to our trusts. We have burial plots and have not prepaid burial expenses. Our heirs are successor trustees and will have access to accounts to pay funeral expenses. We have no plans to ever prepay funeral expenses.
 
Mom told me where she had stashed an envelope with a stack of $100 bills in it. That cash covered all the household bills (nobody was living there, no food needed, etc.) and minor hardware/repair type stuff I bought for the condo. I kept an accounting of the expenses and receipts, as always. I had the judges order (probate) and use of her bank account funds within 3 or 4 weeks of her passing. She didn't live an expensive life, though, so maybe that would be too large of an amount to keep around for others.
 
We more or less "suddenly" decided to be cremated and then have a low-key celebration of life at church. We've seen that process play out many times now and think it's not only efficient and inexpensive but also less hassle for everyone. YMMV
 
We just updated our estate plan. 2 codicils to our wills, 4 POA’s, revise and re-register the trust. That totaled $2K.
 
CaliKid said:
...

I would not prepay the $21k unless you have a medical diagnosis and know that you have a short time to live. Too many variables. People move. People get re-married. People decide to get scattered at sea. Etc.......
Click to expand...
My mother prepaid 15 years before she died but ended up moving cross country for her last two years. It was just a matter of luck that her original funeral home was bought out by a large chain. Her "plan" transferred seamlessly.
 
hotwired said:
Good Morning

My wife and I are retired, 60 years old, pretty much all our ducks in a row other than my investments are way to complex, though I'm working on that slow but sure.

We did just get our wills, etc. tweaked which ended up being around 4K. I've decided the next time we make any changes, I'm educating and doing it myself. I was floored because this cost wasn't an A to Z overhaul, just a review and literally change a couple of names. Brutal. Unnecessary. We have one adult daughter. One home. low 7 figures, and great long term relationships with accountant and CFP. Our daughter has had some growing pains, hence everything goes into a trust if wife and I perish together, which is where our only layer of complexity comes. (Getting a fiduciary trustee and family trustee, creating good documents for people to follow, etc.) Otherwise we have a regularly updated binder with every possible detail, preference, list, letters to our daughter, etc. so there's no doubt or ambiguity.

That said, we recently started getting all our burial and funeral stuff planned. We've got plots, etc. but funeral pre-paid will set us back a little over 21K. I really don't like parting with that much money one year into retirement. (I'm watching SORR like a hawk the first few years!) I'm wondering what some of you have done? Can we maybe set things up, but not actually buy or pay for anything? Or maybe a small deposit? Also, I'd like to make sure our trustees AND daughter have SOME money to use / pay for immediate needs, funeral, etc. without having to worry about waiting to be named PR, probate, etc. What are some simple ideas people use? Maybe have a POD for our daughter on an account, PR on another?

Thanks for any ideas.
Click to expand...
I'm confused...My wife and I are waitng on the lawyer to finish our revokable trust ..We wanted our only adult child to be able to sell our house after we die without having to go through probate..I thought the trust replaces the will...Am I wrong?
 
No doesn't replace, but if everything is in the trust (or covered by beneficiary designations for financial accounts) then there isn't much for the will to cover.

If you want your only adult child to be able to sell your house after you both die without having to do through probate, typically you establish a trust with you as trustee and your adult child as successor trustee (after you die), have the deed for the house changed where the trust then owns the house. When you die, as successor trustee your adult child can sell the house owned by the trust, the proceeds from the sale go to the trust and then the assets of the trust are distributed as the trust provides for.

Typically there is a will as well to cover off anything that isn't put into the trust, sometimes referred to as a spillover will.

Depending on the state that you live in there are other ways to avoid probate for real estate. Our Texas home has a TOD that goes to our kids when the second of us dies. Our Vermont summer home has an enhnced life estate deed aka Lady Bird deed where our two kids will inherit it when the second of us dies. Broadly, these are akin to designating beneficiaries on financial accounts.
 
lawman said:
I'm confused...My wife and I are waitng on the lawyer to finish our revokable trust ..We wanted our only adult child to be able to sell our house after we die without having to go through probate..I thought the trust replaces the will...Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
In my area they call it a pour-over will and it moves any non-trust assets to the trust. I think it is a standard part of the RLT process. For sure your lawyer knows about it
 
pb4uski said:
No doesn't replace, but if everything is in the trust (or covered by beneficiary designations for financial accounts) then there isn't much for the will to cover.

If you want your only adult child to be able to sell your house after you both die without having to do through probate, typically you establish a trust with you as trustee and your adult child as successor trustee (after you die), have the deed for the house changed where the trust then owns the house. When you die, as successor trustee your adult child can sell the house owned by the trust, the proceeds from the sale go to the trust and then the assets of the trust are distributed as the trust provides for.

Typically there is a will as well to cover off anything that isn't put into the trust, sometimes referred to as a spillover will.

Depending on the state that you live in there are other ways to avoid probate for real estate. Our Texas home has a TOD that goes to our kids when the second of us dies. Our Vermont summer home has an enhnced life estate deed aka Lady Bird deed where our two kids will inherit it when the second of us dies. Broadly, these are akin to designating beneficiaries on financial accounts.
Click to expand...
I'm familiar with the Ladybird deed..We had it on our last home..We also wanted to leave money for the two grandchildren when they turn 25..I was hoping to avoid some high taxes and IRMAA penalties by putting some 25 year old I-Bonds in the trust but that is rather complicated and not likely to save any money so I'll be redeeming them over the next 5 years..
 
hotwired said:
Good Morning

My wife and I are retired, 60 years old, pretty much all our ducks in a row other than my investments are way to complex, though I'm working on that slow but sure.

We did just get our wills, etc. tweaked which ended up being around 4K. I've decided the next time we make any changes, I'm educating and doing it myself. I was floored because this cost wasn't an A to Z overhaul, just a review and literally change a couple of names. Brutal. Unnecessary. We have one adult daughter. One home. low 7 figures, and great long term relationships with accountant and CFP. Our daughter has had some growing pains, hence everything goes into a trust if wife and I perish together, which is where our only layer of complexity comes. (Getting a fiduciary trustee and family trustee, creating good documents for people to follow, etc.) Otherwise we have a regularly updated binder with every possible detail, preference, list, letters to our daughter, etc. so there's no doubt or ambiguity.

That said, we recently started getting all our burial and funeral stuff planned. We've got plots, etc. but funeral pre-paid will set us back a little over 21K. I really don't like parting with that much money one year into retirement. (I'm watching SORR like a hawk the first few years!) I'm wondering what some of you have done? Can we maybe set things up, but not actually buy or pay for anything? Or maybe a small deposit? Also, I'd like to make sure our trustees AND daughter have SOME money to use / pay for immediate needs, funeral, etc. without having to worry about waiting to be named PR, probate, etc. What are some simple ideas people use? Maybe have a POD for our daughter on an account, PR on another?

Thanks for any ideas.
Click to expand...
We have the big notebook as well. Wills get reviewed every few years. Last review caused a rewrite to include all the changes to digital asset laws. If your will doesn’t include language regarding digital assets, it is worth a review. Lawyers chime in here.

We keep a safe deposit box with critical docs and enough cash to provide our executrix (?) cash to cover expenses until she gets into the other accounts. She is the beneficiary on everything.

Two global cremation and internment policies cover that possibility.
 
The lawyer element is damned if you do and maybe more damned if you don't. We made some updates with same firm, different staff. Did add a couple trusts, but nothing exotic. Was a wreck. We'd agree to 4 changes they'd make 3 and mess up 2 more. Several iterations and several months transpired.
 
lawman said:
I'm confused...My wife and I are waitng on the lawyer to finish our revokable trust ..We wanted our only adult child to be able to sell our house after we die without having to go through probate..I thought the trust replaces the will...Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
We have a revocable trust, the main reason being that the probate process can be a bear here in TN. Your trust will still have a will as part of the trust. It is designed to mitigate other problems that might occur such as probate; it is not a substitute for a will but rather an enhancement to the process.
 
lawman said:
I'm confused...My wife and I are waitng on the lawyer to finish our revokable trust ..We wanted our only adult child to be able to sell our house after we die without having to go through probate..I thought the trust replaces the will...Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
Texas has both Lady Bird deeds and Transfer on Death deeds, which might be simpler if the house is the only thing to be transferred outside of probate.
 
CaliKid said:
As a former estate attorney we loved when clients did things themselves. Much higher probability of a good probate court case after death. You save a few bucks during life and your family pays much more in the long run. I saw some doozies over the years! "We thought it was such a simple change so my husband just did it himself...." There are a ton of ways to unknowingly screw things up. Doesn't matter to me what you do as I am retired. Just giving you some thoughts on the topic.

Having said that different attorneys can charge significantly different fees for seemingly the exact same work. In some cases the difference is justified - i.e. a brand new attorney is most likely worth the low fees he charges at most. On the other hand I remember "competitors" (with even lesser credentials than me) who charged double what I charged. Their theory was that even if only half as many people hired them they still made the same money and for a lot less work/liability. So, I would never be shy about shopping to two recommended professionals when doing things like estate planning.

I would not prepay the $21k unless you have a medical diagnosis and know that you have a short time to live. Too many variables. People move. People get re-married. People decide to get scattered at sea. Etc....

Yes, POD with some cash to daughter makes sense. Trustee should be able to take over trust accounts very easily if everything is set up right. There are exceptions, that I saw, but it SHOULD be very easy. Banks can create difficulties though from my experience.

Lastly, I recall many cases where a seemingly small change meant that a "restatement of trust" was much better than a simple amendment document. This gives brand new clean documents that utilize the original trust date so that assets do not have to be re-titled. This could be for multiple reasons such as simplicity for the future (one document is much easier to interpret than multiple amendments), new language in the master "forms," and other such reasons. Typically a restatement of trust package would cost less than a brand new one (since likely no trust funding was involved) but some attorneys definitely use it as an opportunity to over-charge (in my opinion).

Best of luck.
Click to expand...
I do get that sentiment and caveat. I just feel like, sheesh, this is easy stuff, comparably. And it's not that I don't think it's worth spending on, it's just that every so often we want to just make a small tweak, and it's hundreds of dollars. I'd love to draft these things for a living, without the 8-9 years of education of course! I love that kind of thing, the "elegance" of well crafted documents, pared down to the barest minimum to avoid "judicial interpretation" yet enough to factor in all the possibilities.

In case I wasn't clear, NOTHING is in a trust NOW. All is titled in either my name or jointly with wife, with daughter's trust as beneficiary, but the trust won't be created until / unless both my wife and I perish.

I think some POD's, and an easy to follow breadcrumb trail should suffice.
 
Dealing with the estate following a death, while complicated, is pretty much a well defined process.

The real kinker in estate planning is when dementia is involved.

Dad had everything in a trust, POAs, and we had a joint checking account so I could pay his bills.
His formal trust document said the successor trustee takes over "when a Dr states I'm not capable". However the PCP Doctor would not engage. The PCP Dr, hospital social worker, and hospital Dr all stated the exact same phrase: "He's still making decisions, they're just bad decisions".

So we had to go to court to get him declared incompetent. The court lets a diagnosed dementia patient chose their own conservator... who must become the sole successor trustee of the trust. Since he was mad at being taken to court he (his lawyer) told the judge he wanted a 3rd party conservator

Twenty years of estate planning and 80K in 3rd party conservator+legal fees flushed down the toilet.

I'm still searching for the right criteria to put into my documents that define when the successor trustee is to take over. 3 different attorney's just shrug and expect me to take their (ineffective) boiler plate language.
 
My aunt and uncle's trust says this:
1772145601191.png


My uncle and I are co-trustees of the trust. I am also my uncle's agent for determining whether he is incapacitated (i) above. SO it would take me and his personal physician (I'm not sure if he has one) or a disinterested physician appointed by me.

Even though my uncle is 90 yo, he is still of sound mind and making all decisions. I frame it as he is the pilot and I'm sitting in the co-pilot seat ready and willing to take the controls when he says to or if something happens that he no longer can (temporarily or permanently).

If I was devious could I freeze him out? Perhaps, but I have my own wealth and better things to do with my time than to initiate something like that though I'm mindful that circumstances may force me to have to remove him against his wishes at some point and I would prefer not to do so if I can help it. I think it will all work out.
 
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