The way in which you organise your estate in your lifetime can have a significant impact on how challenging it is for your loved ones to administer your affairs when you’re gone.
Beyond the most crucial elements of preparing your estate, writing a Will and setting up Powers of Attorney, several other steps can be taken to reduce the practical and emotional difficulties families may face.
Whilst it can be uncomfortable to think about and discuss organising your personal affairs for when you pass away, it helps to ensure that your wishes are upheld and that your beneficiaries receive what you intended them to.
Documenting important details
To make the probate process easier, it can be beneficial to keep a record of all of your assets and debts, including savings, property, investment and personal items, alongside details of your bank, utility companies and any pension and life insurance providers.
If you hold digital assets, such as cryptocurrency, it’s important to leave the passwords or access details to ensure that your family can access this currency. Without this, it can be almost impossible to recover the assets without enormous expense.
On a more personal note, one of the most heartbreaking situations we see is loved ones who are unable to get photographs, videos and messages because they do not have access to social media and storage accounts, such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Social media companies are notoriously difficult to contact and policies often mean that without the login information or permission from the account holder, it is incredibly challenging to recover the accounts.
Creating a digital or physical file that includes all of the above information provides you with the peace of mind that your family will have what they need to administer the estate, receive what you’ve left them and keep precious memories.
Planning for Inheritance Tax
One of the biggest considerations when preparing your affairs is ensuring you take Inheritance Tax (IHT) into account. If you give gifts during your lifetime or legacies to certain people in your Will, your estate may come with a large tax burden. If there are not sufficient liquid assets to cover this bill, your loved ones may be forced to sell things of sentimental value, such as the family home, heirlooms or jewellery, to pay what is owed. Interest is charged on IHT after six months, meaning families can have a limited window to sell parts of the estate before the bill starts to increase.
Our dedicated tax and estate planning team at Hill and Company can support you in identifying your IHT liability and putting a plan in place to utilise available reliefs and understand gifting rules. Taking practical steps now can help to avoid leaving loved ones with a preventable tax bill.
Outlining funeral requests
When a family is coming to terms with a bereavement, planning a funeral can be a daunting task. If you have detailed any wishes for your funeral, it can make the decision-making process much easier. Plans could be included in your Will or in a separate letter of wishes.
However, it’s advisable to be reasonable with funeral requests. Whilst they are not legally binding and executors do not have to follow them, loved ones may feel they have let you down if they are not able to honour expensive or complex instructions. If there are specific arrangements you would like, you could speak to a funeral director to determine what is feasible, any issues that could arise and even put in place a pre-paid funeral plan.
Avoiding a dispute over the Will
Increasing asset value and more complex family dynamics mean that disputes surrounding Wills and estates have now become commonplace. Family members who feel that they have not received what they expected to are more likely to contest and doing so is easier and less stigmatised than it used to be.
Dealing with a bitter dispute on top of grieving and administering an estate can be a huge burden for loved ones. As such, if you feel that there is a risk that a family member may be unhappy with the decisions you’ve made in your Will, it’s important to pre-empt any arguments or put things in place to support your loved ones should a claim arise. Using a specialist solicitor to prepare your Will, keeping it up to date, writing an accompanying letter of wishes and communicating your intentions are all steps that can be taken to reduce the chance of a dispute.
How Hill and Company can help
At Hill and Company, we have been supporting people in our community and beyond for more than 170 years with Wills, probate and tax planning. Our specialist private client team understand how to approach difficult conversations with sensitivity and our solicitors are passionate about ensuring clients have the right plans in place to ensure their wishes are listened to and their families are looked after.
If you’d like support with preparing a Will, establishing Powers of Attorney, tax planning or simply a chat about other preparations you may not have considered, get in touch to see how we can help.
