Leaving a Mess Behind

Many of us in the Sandwich Generation are encountering a dreadful scenario: your parent has suddenly died, if there is another parent still alive he/she does not know if there is a will or who the lawyer is. You have the unenviable job of combing through your parents’ house to find a will (if it exists), to find bank and financial statements to marshall the assets, and to distribute them according to the will (if it exists) or according to state law if there is no will.

How do you find out whether there is a will? If one of your parents is still alive, ask him/her if they had their wills done and where you would find them. If the remaining parent is unable to remember, you need to comb through their house and look at their papers, one by one, until you find a lawyer’s name or a financial advisor’s name. Hopefully, that person will know if there is a will.

If there is a financial advisor, ask about the assets that he is managing and if he knows if there are any other financial advisors in the picture. Frequently, people don’t trust all of their investments to just one advisor. Recent tax returns will list which banks paid interest to your parent and you should contact those banks to find out whether there is an existing bank account or certificate of deposit. The tax returns will also list stocks that paid dividends.

It is possible that you will not locate all of your parent’s assets. Each state has a department that takes possession of assets that revert to the state because the holder of that asset cannot find the owner. You need to check with that department in each state in which your parents lived and keep checking for at least 5 years after your parent’s death to see if any assets show up in their database. You can google “unclaimed property” to find the official websites. Don’t use the services of any company who can “find” money for you for a fee, they are just googling the same websites.

You also have to check for debts that your parent incurred. Were there medical expenses, credit cards, automatic deductions from a bank account for any expense? You must pay all of the legitimate debts and stop the automatic deductions before distributing to the beneficiaries. If the debts are greater than the assets, the estate is insolvent and the creditors will have to settle for less than full payment. If your parent was receiving Social Security or pension benefits, you need to inform the Social Security Administration or the pension provider of his/her death to stop the payments.

Finally, you may be cleaning out your parent’s house if this is your second parent to die. Frequently, this means disposing of years of accumulated mementos, old furniture that was never discarded, collections of items that your parent loved but which have little monetary value, clothing and other assorted junk. If there are items that have sentimental value, you may wish to keep them. But that still usually leaves tons of “stuff” to go through to find the few possessions that are worth keeping. It will take days and even weeks to go through everything.

Is this what you want for your family to go through? Think about it - if you were in a fatal car accident tomorrow, would your heirs know where to find your important legal documents? Would they know who to ask if they couldn’t find them? Organize your papers now. Create a document locator and list where your will is located, in which banks you have accounts or certificates of deposit, which company your financial advisors work for, whether you have life insurance and which company the policy is with. Create a list of important people in your financial life – your lawyer (if you have one), your accountant, your financial planner, your clergy, your bank, and your life insurance agent and put their phone numbers all on one sheet. Give copies of the document locator and list of important financial people to your executor and your back-up executor. If you haven’t written your will yet, give a copy of your document locator and important financial people to your spouse (especially if one of you is handling all the finances for the family), your parents (if they are not too frail), your children (if adults) and your siblings. Don’t leave a mess for your family to deal with if you unexpectedly die.