What is your estate?
Identifying and listing your assets and any debts such as a mortgage will help the person dealing with your estate know what your estate consists of and what it is potentially worth. You could divide your assets into tangible assets and intangible assets. Tangible assets might include a house, a car, jewellery and books. Your intangible assets could be a pension, money in bank accounts, and life insurance or other policies that pay out on death or ill health. Include digital assets, which includes social media accounts, music, emails and photographs. Ideally, you would also detail the value of your assets, such as balances in savings accounts, and the value of your property. You should update this list regularly.
Some assets may not be worth much financially but could have considerable sentimental value to your friends or relatives.
Estate Planning: What to Consider
Estate planning helps you to arrange how to leave your money, property and possessions to your loved ones when you die. From writing a will to minimising inheritance tax, here are the building blocks of an efficient estate plan. Speak with one of our Estate Planners in Norwich, Norfolk.
When deciding where you’d like your assets to go when you die and how you want your estate to be managed, you’ll want to consider:
-
Who do you want to inherit your money or possessions?
-
Are there specific photos, heirlooms or savings you’d like to divide between different friends or relatives, children, grandchildren, and past or present partners?
-
Who would you like to distribute your estate?
-
Do you want to leave any money or possessions to charity?
-
Do you want to consider ways to minimise (IHT) due on your estate?
-
If you have young children, who would take care of them if you were to die while they are still minors?
-
Do you want to plan your funeral, and how should it be paid for as part of the distribution of your assets?
-
Do you want to consider setting up a (LPA) to make decisions on your behalf, if you are unable to?
Thinking about these things in advance will help save heartache or deliberation for those who are tasked with dividing up your estate. It will make their work easier, potentially minimise the tax charged on your estate, and make sure that your wishes are met.
Estate planning helps you to arrange how to leave your money, property and possessions to your loved ones when you die. From writing a will to minimising inheritance tax, here are the building blocks of an efficient estate plan.
Make a will
Every adult should have a will, which is a legally binding document detailing who inherits what when you die. You can also include how to access and manage your digital assets and whether you would like social media accounts memorialized or shut down. You can put together a DIY will without legal help. At its most basic it can be written on a piece of notepaper, but there are more structured templates available online and in stationery stores. The will is legally binding if you sign it in front of two witnesses who are not benefactors named in the will. You must also have the mental capacity to make the will and be making it voluntarily, without pressure from someone else, for it to be valid. The DIY approach to making a will can be risky, though, as any mistakes could invalidate it. For most people, and especially for more complex estates, it makes sense to use a will writer or a solicitor to oversee the process.