updating paperwork regularly and dying tidy

karmalady thank you for posting this. It has made me realise that I need to sort out my 'papers'; something I am very disorganised about!

There can be any number of beneficiaries of a trust but if it’s a trust which owns a house or land the maximum number of owners of the property in England and Wales is four. There can be additional trustees, but ownership of the property is limited to four.

I was told that a Trust had to be a maximumm of FOUR people.

My ex-hubbie was also told this when he wanted to set up a Trust in his will for our five children.

Several years ago, when I got rid of my home office, afind threw out the filing cabinets as they were ugly. I purchased a tall slim, very sturdy Ikea drawer unit. five shallow drawers and four deeper ones. THIS is now my filing cabinet. So all paperwork is easy to see and to find. One of these files is the deeds t my flat plus all infrmation that the Solicitor may requre when it is being sold. A further file in one of the drawers contains my will (my AC all have a copy of this), plus birth, deed poll, marriage, divorce etc certificates. A book kept near to my laptop (An A-Z directory) contains all my passwords etc. My children all know and understand the code I use for my credit card numbers, etc.

I agree that we really should try to make it as easy as possible for our AC, when we die. No matter how old we will be when that happens, it will be a difficult time for our children, and at least we should do whatever we can to make it as simple as possble

I was once asked by a son to help a recently widowed elderly lady to claim a tax refund. She produced a load of unsorted paperwork( this was before online really became the norm) and a good hour was spent just sorting into type and date order. She had not got a clue. How much harder now that many things are online only.
It has been really hard work sorting my late husband’s finances out, especially subscriptions and continuous payments etc, but anything with a paper trail, well organised and filed, is much easier for family to cope with. So that is a hefty nudge to myself to tackle the pile of filing today.

Karma, DH was always the main credit card holder, despite the bill being paid by me.
I too realised the difficulties, which would arise and organised a second one, where I was the main cardholder. It makes sense.

Recently, we bought new tablets and after updating them, ensured we could get into the banking apps for each other's credit card accounts.

My ongoing serious health problems have resulted in us fine tuning, what is already in place.

#Sensible, but not smug of Glasgow.

I tried to `teach` my husband while he was still alive, I made sure he had his own credit card because being second named on my card was not enough to tide him over. There are lots of bills to pay when widowed btw. He would never have coped with the finances if I had gone first

I was married less than a year and he gave me the cheque book for our joint account and asked me to look after the money. Some people just don`t want to know or to face things in later life. It is inevitable that we die but not inevitable that we leave a mess of affairs behind us

Germanshepherdsmum

A poster commented recently that her husband carried all their finances in his head. The most dangerous place imaginable.

That made me 😂😂😂

Although perhaps it shouldn't have!

DH has meticulously listed everything we need to do in the event .......
I really should do the same.

I’ve got the really important death things sorted, and so have my very elderly parents. But - they also have a large house full of things that are heirlooms, collections, and treasures to them, which they don’t want to part with, and the thought of getting all those things valued, packed and cleared to lots of different places is daunting - more so than the paperwork, which was relatively straightforward.

I don’t even know what a ‘trust fund’ is. I have written a Will, dividing everything, except jewellery, between my three children. My daughter will get most of my jewellery. As a matter of fact, I intend to hand them over to her in the next few weeks.

"Digital wealth" - if only

We've all documents, bank things etc kept together with little business books. Our Children know all the details.

I don’t understand why it is that, when I was till working I was really organised with all of my paperwork but, since I retired it just piles up and I can’t seem to keep on top of it!

Living your best life and leaving all your affairs in order can coexist

Not being morbid, just being sensible ,thinking of those you will leave behind and making the process as stress free as possible.

I have a list of all our bank accounts etc which I keep updated and our daughter knows where it is. We still have accounts etc from our time in business which are kept for 7 years to comply with HMRC and every February I enjoy having a bonfire to destroy the oldest set.
I also have information concerning my deceased parents and was surprised to learn that anything to do with probate should be kept for a minimum of 20 years - fortunately I learnt this before I had burnt anything of theirs!

👏👏👏

That is exactly it Marydoll, that is hitting the nail on the head.

Alice75 it is nothing to do with living the best life, most of us already live the best life we can. It is about having empathy and consideration for the people who will have to sort our details after we die

I have an updated will and also POA, executors and an attorney, both done by my solicitor. I should think that they, my AC and my DGC would be grief stricken and relieving some of the burden is quite honestly the last good thing we can do for them

When my father died, my my mother buried her head in the sand and left me, heavily pregnant, with two toddlers to deal with everything. When the family lair was opened, it was full, she told me to sort it. She never asked to the day she died, how I managed to pay for everything.
When she died, I had no idea about the financial mess she was in.
I swore I would never put my family through that.

Exactly Marydoll - or had a stroke or accident which rendered him permanently unable to communicate. 😱 indeed.

My aunt and uncle had a trust. After they died it cost my cousin thousands of pounds to get rid of it. She said the only people who benefited were the solicitor and the bank.

From the way I understand it, if you have had a family trust for a long time, and one of you needs to go into a care home, then the remaining partner does not have to pay as much in care home fees.

But if one of you dies before going into a care home, then the need for care home fees doesn't arise. However, there are then issues with the money going to the rest of the family and possibly not enough left over for the remaining partner.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Germanshepherdsmum

A poster commented recently that her husband carried all their finances in his head. The most dangerous place imaginable.

😱

What if he died suddenly? How can people be so naive?

A poster commented recently that her husband carried all their finances in his head. The most dangerous place imaginable.

When my friend's husband died, she had to go to court. All her married life her husband controlled all the finances, he even chose her cars. She never worked and was quite happy to be dependent on him.
He was a very astute business man, but left no will. It was an absolute mess, she found keys to properties he owned, which she knew nothing about.
Nothing was labelled, no passwords left.

I couldn't believe how foolish she had been.

Our wills are made, funerals paid for,all accounts joint and POA's done. I have no wish to leave my family a mess to deal with.

Obviously, it’s sensible to have paperwork such as this organised to make it easier for those who will have to sort it out eventually - but I hope you are living your life as fully as possible now?

Basically that’s the point of a trust mumski - you give the property to the trustees. You may be one of them but you can’t dispose of the trust property, or raise a mortgage on it, on your own.