How do you manage your budget?

[VickieH]

I could have been paid to be an executor??? I was my mom's POA and the executor of her estate. I certainly charged my expenses to the estate (airplanes, etc.) but nothing else. The whole thing was a PITA.

I have been an Administrator, Executor, and Trustee for family who lived in Virginia. I briefly looked into some of the laws, etc. the first time. IIRC, Virginia allowed somewhere around 5% of the value of the estate as compensation. Maryland, where I lived, allowed about 11%.

The estates were those of my sister, mother, and father. I never charged the estates anything, but if things had gotten out of hand, I would have.

I expect you can specify compensation in wills and trust documents, but there may also be allowances prescribed by the state in which the person lived.

 

[socalgal]

That's kind of the opposite level of commitment, LOL. I'm a little confused because it's available from nolo.com , but I guess it's co-branded with Quicken or something? Still ... might be worth it just to *get it done*.

It is/was very much "follow the steps".... I still need to finish mine though. Ugh.

 

[Monique]

It is/was very much "follow the steps".... I still need to finish mine though. Ugh.

Yeah, I *know* I need to have some sort of a will. I have been really skeptical of all the online tools I've seen. I think Willmaker is probably the same, but hopefully (?) more detailed, and I would feel more comfortable having an application installed on my machine to work through it and update it. I found a 10% off discount code for WillMaker 2020 - "will20"

 

[tball]

@Monique we just reworked my Dad's estate plan with an estate planning attorney in Broomfield that I'd highly recommend. He's a solo practitioner and has reasonable rates and only does this stuff. My wife and I did a half-ass will from the Nolo book and it doesn't really compare (and she's an attorney of another sort). We plan to have him redo everything for us, as there is so much that goes into it that if you really want to do it right. Nolo/Willmaker is way better than nothing, but it's probably worth spending a couple of grand if you want it done well, and much easier. PM me if you want his details.

 

[Monique]

@Monique we just reworked my Dad's estate plan with an estate planning attorney in Broomfield that I'd highly recommend. He's a solo practitioner and has reasonable rates and only does this stuff. My wife and I did a half-ass will from the Nolo book and it doesn't really compare (and she's an attorney of another sort). We plan to have him redo everything for us, as there is so much that goes into it that if you really want to do it right. Nolo/Willmaker is way better than nothing, but it's probably worth spending a couple of grand if you want it done well, and much easier. PM me if you want his details.

Thanks! Er, actually, my good friend's husband is an estate planning attorney. If I were going to have an attorney do it, I'd have him do it. I don't want to spend a couple grand on this right now - I'm still young, and I expect a lot of factors to change drastically in the next year. My primary concern is making sure that if I die unexpectedly, my boyfriend doesn't get kicked out of the house. That should be pretty simple to codify. I could probably write it on a post it, but the software seems like a reasonable investment just so that I don't have to think about wording.

 

[Varmintmist]

I have been an Administrator, Executor, and Trustee for family who lived in Virginia. I briefly looked into some of the laws, etc. the first time. IIRC, Virginia allowed somewhere around 5% of the value of the estate as compensation. Maryland, where I lived, allowed about 11%.

The estates were those of my sister, mother, and father. I never charged the estates anything, but if things had gotten out of hand, I would have.

I expect you can specify compensation in wills and trust documents, but there may also be allowances prescribed by the state in which the person lived.

Yep, you dont have to get paid, but it is legal and expected. In PA it varies by the amount of the estate. and the larger the estate, then higher it gets. It stacks to make it more confusing though. http://evans-legal.com/dan/estfees.html If you were dealing with a million dollar estate, you could, in PA take 53K. You dont have to take that much, but taking any more would be cause for the courts to get involved. Its just my sister and I, so unless something gets weird, I have been logging my hours and plan on asking for enough to cover that and espenses.

 

[Nancy Hummel]

Thanks! Er, actually, my good friend's husband is an estate planning attorney. If I were going to have an attorney do it, I'd have him do it. I don't want to spend a couple grand on this right now - I'm still young, and I expect a lot of factors to change drastically in the next year. My primary concern is making sure that if I die unexpectedly, my boyfriend doesn't get kicked out of the house. That should be pretty simple to codify. I could probably write it on a post it, but the software seems like a reasonable investment just so that I don't have to think about wording.

In Colorado you can do a beneficary deed which transfers title to real estate upon the owner’s death. Relatively simple.

 

[Monique]

In Colorado you can do a beneficary deed which transfers title to real estate upon the owner’s death. Relatively simple.

Thanks, Nancy! That's very helpful.

 

[Varmintmist]

Yep, you dont have to get paid, but it is legal and expected. In PA it varies by the amount of the estate. and the larger the estate, then higher it gets. It stacks to make it more confusing though. http://evans-legal.com/dan/estfees.html If you were dealing with a million dollar estate, you could, in PA take 53K. You dont have to take that much, but taking any more would be cause for the courts to get involved. Its just my sister and I, so unless something gets weird, I have been logging my hours and plan on asking for enough to cover that and espenses.

FYI, in PA it is figured on the probated portion only. If you set everything up with dependants and a trust, then there is no portion that the executor is entitled to a percentage of, mainly because there is no executor.

 

[Wilhelmson]

An inlaw asked me to serve as successor trustee on some of her assets. I was fine with this with the stipulation that the beneficiaries would receive their shares outright. I've seen situations where things get very ugly when family members are critical of the trustee's actions. Sometimes the best intentions have unintended consequences. If I end up with sufficient money I'd just hire a corporate trustee.

 

[Monique]

I downloaded Quicken WillMaker. So far it's ... okay I guess? It's a choose your own adventure tool, of course, so some things may depend on your choices. But I found it surprisingly light. Maybe I just don't understand much about wills, and maybe allowing more options would make the will more easily contestable.

It occurs to me that the $80 for the software might be worth it just to organize your information before you go to a lawyer, so that you're not wasting billable hours talking through the basics of what you can and can't do. It's obvious what you CAN do using this tool, and then perhaps you could just bring the lawyer the generated will and worksheets and ask questions specific to your case, and the lawyer could bring up anything they might add or remove.

I have a few quibbles so far. It does allow for disposition and care of pets, so that's good. (It doesn't allow you to just say something like "whatever pets I own upon my death" - you have to call out specific pets, which seems unfortunate given their shorter lifespans.)

Quibbles:

1. I chose the "most of my estate goes to one person" path, which then prompts you for exceptions. There is no specific question regarding accounts that already have designated beneficiaries, which AFAIK includes all retirement accounts. I gather that this can be a real fustercluck if the will disagrees with the financial institution's records. There's a place where you can say "here are the exceptions," but there's no specific prompt for account information (this seems like it would be useful), and while you CAN enter something about it going to the designated beneficiaries, it's not really "in model" as the tool is designed to save off individual names of inheritors and use them in other forms. This must be a common scenario, so I think the tool should provided distinct verbiage (if only to make clear that the designers took this issue into consideration). It should at the least point out this potential issue.

2a. It didn't prompt me for aliases, maiden name, etc., which seems like a big oversight. I only recently (actually, when Eric died and I needed accounts to be in my current name for various transfers) finally updated my maiden name to my married name on several accounts.

2b. It requests "male" or "female," seemingly only to insert pronouns, and I wonder how this would play for trans individuals esp. depending on state laws regarding driver's licenses etc. This seems like another area where the experts (supposedly) who designed the tool would provide guidance. In the future, I suspect there may also be a lot more people who use alternate pronouns, but I would doubt there has been a lot of precedent, and almost certainly not in every state.

3. There's a section in the Property Worksheet for online accounts, but it seems like they missed an opportunity to tell you certain things. For example, Facebook allows you to specify someone to "own" your page as a memorial page after you've died, and Google allows you to specify someone to receive your files after X months of account inactivity. I don't think these features are well publicized, and I'd be curious if there are similar functions for other popular providers. Interestingly, it sort of suggests a separate document listing usernames and passwords, which is a legal weird area right now (most ToS forbid sharing of passwords in any situation, while I believe there have been court cases asserting that all digital data is your own, which probably means you should be able to bequeath it, but I'm not sure that's been fully hashed out).

4. The property worksheet is a PDF form whose contents are not stored within the tool (unlike the Will itself, whose data is stored in the tool for future updates). There are more lines for "livestock" than there are for "social media accounts." To be fair, it's a pretty standard worksheet, similar to what my lawyer gave me when Eric died.

 

[Nancy Hummel]

I downloaded Quicken WillMaker. So far it's ... okay I guess? It's a choose your own adventure tool, of course, so some things may depend on your choices. But I found it surprisingly light. Maybe I just don't understand much about wills, and maybe allowing more options would make the will more easily contestable.

It occurs to me that the $80 for the software might be worth it just to organize your information before you go to a lawyer, so that you're not wasting billable hours talking through the basics of what you can and can't do. It's obvious what you CAN do using this tool, and then perhaps you could just bring the lawyer the generated will and worksheets and ask questions specific to your case, and the lawyer could bring up anything they might add or remove.

I have a few quibbles so far. It does allow for disposition and care of pets, so that's good. (It doesn't allow you to just say something like "whatever pets I own upon my death" - you have to call out specific pets, which seems unfortunate given their shorter lifespans.)

Quibbles:

1. I chose the "most of my estate goes to one person" path, which then prompts you for exceptions. There is no specific question regarding accounts that already have designated beneficiaries, which AFAIK includes all retirement accounts. I gather that this can be a real fustercluck if the will disagrees with the financial institution's records. There's a place where you can say "here are the exceptions," but there's no specific prompt for account information (this seems like it would be useful), and while you CAN enter something about it going to the designated beneficiaries, it's not really "in model" as the tool is designed to save off individual names of inheritors and use them in other forms. This must be a common scenario, so I think the tool should provided distinct verbiage (if only to make clear that the designers took this issue into consideration). It should at the least point out this potential issue.

2a. It didn't prompt me for aliases, maiden name, etc., which seems like a big oversight. I only recently (actually, when Eric died and I needed accounts to be in my current name for various transfers) finally updated my maiden name to my married name on several accounts.

2b. It requests "male" or "female," seemingly only to insert pronouns, and I wonder how this would play for trans individuals esp. depending on state laws regarding driver's licenses etc. This seems like another area where the experts (supposedly) who designed the tool would provide guidance. In the future, I suspect there may also be a lot more people who use alternate pronouns, but I would doubt there has been a lot of precedent, and almost certainly not in every state.

3. There's a section in the Property Worksheet for online accounts, but it seems like they missed an opportunity to tell you certain things. For example, Facebook allows you to specify someone to "own" your page as a memorial page after you've died, and Google allows you to specify someone to receive your files after X months of account inactivity. I don't think these features are well publicized, and I'd be curious if there are similar functions for other popular providers. Interestingly, it sort of suggests a separate document listing usernames and passwords, which is a legal weird area right now (most ToS forbid sharing of passwords in any situation, while I believe there have been court cases asserting that all digital data is your own, which probably means you should be able to bequeath it, but I'm not sure that's been fully hashed out).

4. The property worksheet is a PDF form whose contents are not stored within the tool (unlike the Will itself, whose data is stored in the tool for future updates). There are more lines for "livestock" than there are for "social media accounts." To be fair, it's a pretty standard worksheet, similar to what my lawyer gave me when Eric died.

Wills only distribute property that is part of the probate estate. If you have designated beneficiaries on financial accounts, those accounts are not part of the probate process.

Wills are designed to be somewhat generic so that you don't have to change the will every time you change banks, buy a new car etc.

Most estate planning attorneys have their own questionnaire that you can fill out and they use that to draft your will. They know what information they need and they know the questions to ask. Most have a fairly streamlined approach. I went to an attorney to draft my will. I feel much better that it was done correctly and covered all the bases.

 

[Monique]

Wills only distribute property that is part of the probate estate. If you have designated beneficiaries on financial accounts, those accounts are not part of the probate process.

I had heard there can be problems if someone does reference them in the will, and the beneficiaries are not the same (However IANAL and also haven't researched this myself). I assume even the simplest will could be a nightmare if someone shows up to contest it.

Wills are designed to be somewhat generic so that you don't have to change the will every time you change banks, buy a new car etc.

Just pets, apparently ;-)

Most estate planning attorneys have their own questionnaire that you can fill out and they use that to draft your will. They know what information they need and they know the questions to ask. Most have a fairly streamlined approach. I went to an attorney to draft my will. I feel much better that it was done correctly and covered all the bases.

*nod* I expect to change *koff* marital status in the next year to two years, at which point all of this becomes moot, I think. When Eric died without a will, because we were married (possibly also because we didn't have children?), I didn't even have to go through probate, or anyway there was some sort of expedited process that my lawyer handled. On the flip side, the nice thing about having a joint account is that I didn't need the Letters of Administration to access our funds in the meantime.

On a related note, all the vultures who immediately contacted me to do me the "favor" of buying my house for cash can rot in hell. One even texted me so that I couldn't screen them out. It saddens me to think of all the widow(er)s who might have needed that cash and sold their house below market value. It's hard to think straight at that time.

 

[T-Square]

You can put in a poison pill clause that if anyone contests the will they are automatically excluded from any and all of the proceeds of the will. Talk to your lawyer about this. It’s a good clause to have to prevent shenanigans.