Thank you for sharing.+1000% - this is very much what we did this past year, with my DH's father's decline. He passed in March, and we were able to wrap up the estate in 6 months.I’m sorry you have to go through this. Most of us go through this eventually, but I’m sorry it’s now.
Anyway…
Get a copy of the trust documents. Understand what your rights and responsibilities are as successor trustee.
Find out who her estate attorney is. You may not actually need the attorney for anything, but you might.
Get a copy of the will. Usually it’s just a pour over will that puts everything that’s not already in the trust into the trust. You may need to get a small estate affidavit to do that when the time comes.
Get a copy of any medical or financial POA docs she has. I assume hubby is listed first on those, but if there’s a question about his competence, you may need to step in while she’s still alive.
Get a list of all her bank, brokerage, mutual fund, credit card, etc accounts. Both in the trust and in her name. Make sure beneficiaries are set correctly. The trust for most things, actual people for IRAs.
Find out what subscriptions and utility accounts she has, so you can cancel them when the time comes.
If it’s not in the trust documents, find out what kind of memorial she wants, and what to do with her personal property.
When I was in this situation I found it useful to do a “pre-flight” on dealing with the estate. I identified all of the accounts, bills, life insurance, etc, and checked to make sure that what would happen to the estate was what his wishes were. I ended up finding a couple of accounts with wrong beneficiaries, and a car that was still in mom’s name, which was the biggest problem we had, since she had died a decade earlier, we needed to reopen probate to retitle the car, and her will had been written when I was 10.
Dad’s will was at least up to date.
Critically, we made sure that all bank accounts had beneficiaries. We also had a couple of months of panic, as we could not locate the trust documents, and the attorney who had prepared them had retired or died.
Once we found the trust documents, we worked through a list of things, including sending in documents to claim on his life insurance policy (which required copies of his birth certificate, their marriage certificate, her Social Security card, the original LI policy, which we had indeed found buried in a box of old papers...it was a lot).
We gathered her tax returns for the past couple of years, which were helpful in tracking down bank accounts. We then spent a weekend setting up all the accounts to be online - which required us to do it from her house, as 2FA required access to their landline. Then we set up all the bills to be on autopay - a huge benefit, as she had missed a few payments, and had had the phone turned off at one point.
We also retained an attorney to update the house titling for the updated trust info - showing MIL as the primary trustee, and the sons and successor trustees. We filed Form 706 to allow for portability of FIL's estate excess to MIL.
We also updated her Health Care POA and her Financial POA, as FIL was her proxy in the older documents. Then we made sure that her accounts all had updated beneficiaries, as FIL had been her primary beneficiary on her accounts. We also made sure that the Durable Financial POA was on file with both Schwab and Chase.
The hardest part has been MIL does not use email or computers, and ALL of the processes have assumed that she does. Trying to set up direct deposit for the survivor's pension was the worst. They had all sorts of "identity checks" that included info that she didn't have at hand - and they told us if they heard anyone else on the call, they would end it and suspend the account. We were able to play charades with her and point to various pieces of paper - with his SSN, his date of death, his date of birth, etc. But they wanted her to confirm the amount of the monthly pension, which she could not do - she had received a retro check for months of past pay, and had no idea what the monthly amount was supposed to be. So the first agent locked her out, and we had to call back for another agent. We then told her up front that we could not answer the monthly pension amount question, given that she'd received a lump sum from them. As a result, they activated other identity questions, which she could answer. But it was difficult for her - at nearly 88, the whole thing was a bit overwhelming to her.
Best wishes on all of this. It's a lot.
ETA:
- Do not discontinue her cell phone - you'll need it for 2FA on many accounts. If she is allowable, add your cell phone now as an authorized 2FA.
- If she has life insurance/IRAs, make sure that the kids are beneficiaries, not her estate. DFIL listed his estate on his LI as beneficiary, and it took months to get them to kick loose the payment.
Statistics: Posted by jumbo shrimp — Wed Jan 01, 2025 2:40 pm