You need a filing system
Why you ask, I don’t want to Marie Kondo my house, I just want a Will?
I am not asking you to file everything, but as part of my Estate Planning system I will ask you to find the documents that are important for Estate Planning (and also for during your life, I might add).
The thing is that you need these documents, key documents, and usually when you try to put your hands on them it is a somewhat urgent situation. You need these documents for you, for now, as well as for your Estate Plan.
Mostly though you need a filing system because the permission to help you is useless unless someone has the ability to help you. You need a system to store your documents, passwords and other information. Currently I am guessing that these documents are strewn across different places within your house, or different places between your house and your work, as well as some of the information only residing inside your head.
You also need a calendar that extends beyond 12 months, there are a lot of Estate Planning and life admin tasks that need to be repeated. So this isn’t just about BDBNs (though they are important) but will also help with other things like when is your driving license renewal due? All lawyers have stories of clients who got caught driving unlicensed because they simply didn’t get that reminder in the post. The fines for driving your vehicle unregistered are roughly $2,000 in NSW, and again we all know people who have been caught out now that the stickers aren’t on our cars anymore. So this task will be good for things other than Estate Planning.
Why does this matter?
The problem with Estate Planning is that, this is what people think that administering their Estate will be like for their Executor.
If this graphic did actually represent what it is like for an Executor then yes, a simple Will document would be fine. The reason I am so passionate about Estate Planning is that administering a Will, or being an Executor, actually looks more like this.
You need to do what you can to help make this mess on the right easier for your Executor, cause they get to deal with all of this, not just the stuff that falls within your Will.
But can’t I do it later?
Here is the thing, you won’t do it later. Also most of what I ask you to do in my Estate Planning course is either useful for now, for during your life, or it is necessary in order to properly prepare your Will.
So for instance it is useful during your life to have your important documents somewhere sensible, and it is useful during your life to have a plan for what happens if your family doesn’t have your income for a few months (which also happens when you die and they are waiting six months to administer Probate). These things are beneficial for now, and for your Estate Plan.
But mostly, avoid this mess for your grieving family, and let’s sort out your Estate Plan.
Okay fine, I need an Estate Plan
If you want to get started with your Estate Plan then you can read this blog post to better understand the process, or you can go to the Book Janis page to book in a time to chat to me on the phone, or you can send me an email.
