My parents did the most amazing thing getting things under control before they passed. They had downsized twice, first from a huge colonial house in eastern Pennsylvania to a condo, then a second time from the condo to a brand-new assisted living facility with an independent wing, an assisted care wing, and a dementia wing. By the time they got to move into the assisted living facility, I think they had downsized to about three cardboard boxes of papers. Dad was very well organized with the will; named me the executor; reviewed everything he had done with me; left me with a binder of all the needed information; and introduced me to his lawyer. He set my disabled sister up in an adult special needs housing foundation with independent living homes, too. He didn’t want any burden to fall to me or my other sister and he sure met that goal.
He left me (all of us) a superb example of how to set everything up right.
We haven’t downsized much — in fact, with the second home, we really “upsized”!
We’ve got our estate all figured out, executor named, a trust set up, and have had discussions with our kids. I figure I’ll tell them to hire somebody to dispose of everything at an absolute auction when we are gone. Or my wife can handle it if I go first.
When my 2nd oldest sister died, she had a Will, but had no property, stocks, bonds, nothing. She put me on her savings and checking account as a co-owner when she was diagnosed with cancer, and gave me Power of Attorney since I was the last one in the family left. I discovered that her Will, the original was still in her possession. She had signed it, but never sent it back to the attorney who had prepared it. I called his office, and he told me he could process her Will, but since she owned nothing, it wasn't really necessary. He told me to file letters of Administration with the Surrogate court where she died, in order to get permission from the court to submit her tax returns for the year she died (2011). He also told me to pay for her funeral expenses out of my own account, so that there would be a record of how much I had spent related to her passing. She'd already reserved a spot for her ashes at a cemetery, but I paid for her cremation, and whatever other costs there were. Once I received the approved letters of administration from the court, I filed them with her tax returns. After I received the tax refunds, I had to file a paper with the court to document what the refunds had been used for with receipts. All I had to do was submit the receipts for her cremation, last medical bills, etc. which were more than what the actual Federal and State refunds were.