Poll: Relationship to Executor?

[Midpack]

Currently my brother who is younger than I am. Backup plan would be my Trust.
As a matter of fact, I am currently assembling my "Ok Now I'm Dead" binder/online, and going through all my papers to organize materials for my executor. It is one of my goals in the first year of retirement. Does everyone have something similar?

To the best of my ability I have assembled one binder and online everything our executor everything would ever need. All three of our executors have access when we go poof. It is updated annually at the very least.

My Dad had such a notebook and it was incredibly helpful to my sister and I when he passed away in 2018.

 

[Dalmore]

My sister, who is 5 years older than I am, is our primary executor. As backup, we named her oldest daughter.

 

[SecondCor521]

Currently my brother who is younger than I am. Backup plan would be my Trust.
As a matter of fact, I am currently assembling my "Ok Now I'm Dead" binder/online, and going through all my papers to organize materials for my executor. It is one of my goals in the first year of retirement. Does everyone have something similar?

My Mom did, my Dad does, and I do.

My Mom's had extra stuff in there, but it's better to have too much than too little. She also did a thing where she made sure we all knew about "the green notebook" and where all the papers were and stuff. Also, the last year or so of her life, she had a box where she put anything important. When I came over to visit, she trained me to go through the box and review all the papers so I knew what was going on.

As far as OP's question:

My Dad has three kids, and the executor/trustee role is filled by age. So my oldest sister is primary, other sister is secondary, and I'm tertiary. I'm the designated medical/POST person and I have a durable POA as well. The former because my Dad thinks I'm more likely to pull the plug per his wishes than my sisters would be, and the latter is probably because I'm local and my sisters live out of state.

In my own case, my middle sister is my executrix. I picked her over my eldest sister because she is younger, lives closer to me, and is better suited to the role.

I wanted to switch it to one of my children. I discussed it with them and for various reasons this idea is problematic, so for now I'll leave it with my sister. Maybe I'll revisit in ten years or something.

 

[Dd852]

My vote is for an attorney. Yes there are fees. But taking the personal and the emotional out of the equation saves a lot of stress.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Similar situation to OP. DW has no close family and I’m down to one sibling who’s older than me. We found an attorney who specializes in wills and elder law and made them executor.

 

[Retired Expat]

My two sisters were co-executors for our fathers estate because I live so far away. But it was beyond them and they couldn’t work together so they relinquished it to me. I am, or was a successful businessman so was much easier for me to act alone. Increased their net of estate tax inheritance by a hefty 6 figures each from how they were going to do it so never heard a peep from them

 

[Bamaman]

My DW is my executor and I am her executor. Her daughter is an accountant, and she's the backup.

Our business is relatively simple, and the daughter is already on our accounts. The main problem is that we're 200 miles from her, and we simply have too many assets to liquidate or pass around. Our main home is large and our furniture is too nice to give away. We also have a lake house and 2 boats that'd need to be liquidated. A RV is in the Blue Ridge mountains. The logistics of liquidation would be very time consuming.

We are raising a 10 year old granddaughter that needs to be provided for. And her brother also deserves to be taken care of. We need to setup a special needs trust for them.

What's difficult is getting advice on who to leave what to, and how to setup our wills in the most equitable manner. We have two very grown up children that are not fiscally responsible.

 

[Teacher Terry]

2 of my 3 sons will handle it. I have downsized significantly and have a death packet. It won’t be difficult.

 

[Deej]

Not kids here either and will not put siblings in that position because we don't get along. So, even though my best friend of 57 years is one year older than I (friends since age 5), she is our Executor because I trust her with anything. As we age, I will include someone younger on the form, but as of now, there isn't anyone. Certainly, we will review things every few years as we finally just met with an attorney for our estate planning after years of putting it off.

 

[badatmath]

I don't have a will due to lack of family to name for this stuff. Yes, I know I should.

 

[old medic]

Our DD .... We need to get that part written in stone, but have our plans made already. Its unfortunate that we can't rely on our DS to handle issues or money. If we just split stuff in half, He would take his cash and sue to get more since he has the only grandchild. He would Morgage any property to blow money on stupid ****. He has already made comments about he should get the house... Oh the frustration