The Sunday Edit | Estate Planning Beyond $$$
DID YOU KNOW…When you leave this earth, you can’t take anything along for the next part of your journey?!
It's true!
All your "stuff" must and will find a new home...
The California T Ferrari. Source/ Insider
...but...will it go where you want it to and to whom you want it to?
Sadly, Estate Planning for your favorite objects - art, collections, cars, jewelry, handbags, watches, wine, spirits - is often kicked-down-the-road by many families.
Have you been on the receiving end of someone’s neglect to manage their planning? And, just how much did you enjoy dealing with THAT?
Respectful decision-making is hard work. Many a child ends up thinking unpleasant thoughts of the loved ones who left their own decision-making undone.
Interior decorator Barbara Lane’s Manhattan-set apartment, which features works by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, and more. Source/ Architectural Digest.
What do Picasso, Jimi Hendrix, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King all have in common?
They all died without having a plan!
What ensued was decades of CHAOS.
Wealth Managers and Fiduciaries, in general, dictate non-material concerns like financial and business interests, intellectual property and real estate. The endgame of those considerations may be more about cash flow, but it's often the personal property assets which hold up the settlement process. Heirs are hamstrung by lack of planning for tangible assets. Lack of planning means that a government entity will decide for you.
Hoarder house: what happens to homes when left unattended.
One can’t divide, bestow, or deed Aunt Suzy’s memories or sense of humor, but, helping her with an estate plan for her “things” can do the next best thing; organize, protect, and distribute the object(s) which she cherished and prized. From Prada to pets, armchairs to firearms, cars to cabochons, the challenges of estate planning are intricately tied to the logistics of tangible personal property.
Paul Newman wearing his Daytona Rolex from Joanne Woodward; 1968 Daytona Rolex. Source/ Forbes.
INVENTORY...JUST DO IT.
Keeping track of your personal property for the sake of estate planning can be a tedious task for the non-professional. A competent, professional inventory appraisal can protect your heirs from many of these issues, but cannot determine which of your favorite charities or grandchildren should benefit from your vintage gold wristwatch; only you can do that!
The connoisseurship terms associated with specific mediums is critical for accurate cataloging and valuation. An improper description not only has the potential to impact statements of value, but also statements of identification and inheritance.
Mikimoto Pearl set. Source/ Lee Michaels.
The disclosure of each item's location is important, as well. For illustrative purposes, let’s say that your estate’s most valuable artwork is hanging on loan at the local history museum. If your estate accounts for the work but fails to note it’s change of location, that museum might end up keeping the piece as an unintended bequest! Or, perhaps, you lent your niece your Mikimotos for her prom and she stashed them in her own jewelry box until the next time she sees you!
Leave the stuff safely behind when you enter the next dimension!
It will be appreciated!
-Authored by Lynn Magnusson, President, edited by Heather Zises, Marketing Director
Know. Like. Trust.