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Strategies & Market Trends : Estate Planning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SI Dave who wrote (2)	1/15/2005 12:26:54 AM
From: Cisco	Respond to of 79

I noticed that Nolo Press is still marketing the product as new. (Edition 5.0.2, March 2003) nolo.com So if I understand you right, this product will allow me to catalog important information to a CD for my survivors. If so, I might be interested in it. Currently, I have purchased a fire proof hanging file. I am in the process of placing everything my executor and successor trustee would need in this file so they can just pick it up and take it with them when I am gone. It would be nice to add a catalog CD to that file. I plan to keep a copy of my trust and will in that file with the originals in a safety deposit box. I also plan to file a TOD (transfer when dead) for the box with the bank. It will transfer it directly to my trust. If I am alive my attorney-in-fact will have access to the box. If I am incapacitated then my successor trustee will also have access to the box. If I am dead, then only my successor trustee will have access. BTW, my attorney-in-fact and successor trustee will be the same person. Well, this was the best I could come up with for safe guarding the will and trust while still having the information readily available to others.

To: SI Dave who wrote (2)	1/15/2005 12:38:54 AM
From: Cisco	Respond to of 79

I read on another thread the other day your discussion on how Suze Orman sometimes makes blanket statements, which are not always true. Well I ran across another one of these in her book which is more often wrong than right. She states that all revocable living trusts should be coupled with a pour over will. The fact is only a living trust with subtrust for property management should have a pour over will. Instead, other trust should have a regular back up will. One of the advantages of a living trust is that it can be settled and closed in a few weeks after death instead of taking months to years for a will to be probated. If you have a pour over clause in your will then your trust must remain open until after the will is probated and everything has been poured over into your trust. If you have a subtrust in your living trust for your children, then a pour over will may be okay since there is no hurry to close the trust. In my case, I plan to put everything into my trust except my car, bank accounts, and brokerage accounts. I will have a TOD on each of my bank account and brokerage accounts so that the only property I will have going through my will is my car. I will have a pour over clause in my will as well since I have children who will have subtrusts set up for them.

To: SI Dave who wrote (2)	1/15/2005 7:57:47 AM
From: SI Bob	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 79

A friend just had a fire in their trailer and it's a total loss (in this area, you've got trailer-dwellers and people with big homes on acreage -- not a lot in between). When they said the insurance company was paying them $35k for the contents I said "Aside from the loss of sentimental items, you came out alright then, eh?". Nope. They were still tallying up things from memory and had reached $75k worth of contents. So they say. I'm having trouble imagining it. Reminded me of the fact that though we carry a fair amount of life insurance on me, a running joke is that we spell "Daddy's Life Insurance" as "Estate Sale". Which reminded me of a thought I'd only had a week or so ago. That I really do need to inventory everything. If I were to kick the bucket right now, my wife would have to count on the generosity of one of my friends to go through my workshop and organize things for sale (not mixing Snap-On end wrenches with made-in-Taiwan ones, for example). And we've long talked of the need to go through house, garage, workshop, storage shed, and around the property video-taping everything with commentary, then build a database listing everything we own with its cost and FMV. And though we still haven't done so, we did learn years ago (and each time we say we wish we had time to do it -- maybe companies should offer this as a service!!!) that a rough estimate won't even be close. I'd estimate $100k contents right now, but no sooner had I typed that than I realized there's easily $25k worth of musical gear in here. About $10k for recording equipment, my daughter's trumpet is $2500, and then there's all my guitars, the piano, drums, two more trumpets, other keyboards, tenor sax, clarinet, trombone. Heck, I may've sand-bagged just the musical instruments pretty badly. And we probably have about 300 DVD's now. Adds up. If I remember right, our coverage is about $200k for house contents. I don't remember if the outbuildings have coverage for contents, but think it's typically half the value of the building. Nothing in the garage near the house (imagine that! A garage with room for cars!) but it could take a month to inventory everything in the workshop, and I quickly exceeded $100k just running through the 4-wheeled vehicle category (my truck and backhoe happen to be in the building right now or it wouldn't be close). In a comparatively flimsy building in Tornado Alley. Hmmmm.... So, I guess my point is that what you own should be catalogued, not only for estate planning, but for making sure you've got appropriate insurance coverage. And someday I should put this sermon into practice.