A friend sent a link to a Wall Street Journal article by Jeff Opdyke last night that was right on the money about issues regarding how difficult it is for executors of an estate to do their job after a loved one has passed. In the article were remarks from a few people on how hard it was to get things done, or how long it took to complete but the one thing that really stuck out for me was a link to a document that seems essential for any family discussion on estate planning. The document was called the Essential Document Locator and it is a one page sheet that lays out various places where documents might be located and then it outlines various assets and lets you mark which location you can find the asset, or information about the asset.
I’ve already started getting a bit of a head’s up on how hard some of this will be with my parent’s estate after dealing with a lot of their financial and insurance details during the fallout after their accident in March. My dad has always been very organized but mom’s filing system stymies most of us even if she seems to know where everything is – but, unfortunately, sometimes she doesn’t know where a particular file or policy might be located.
Having a document like this that is easy to access would be incredibly helpful. I plan on putting something like this together for them the next time I go visit and I’ll put one in place at my own home too.
