Make sure that you have beneficiaries on your accounts. If you want to change your will do it as soon as you can and get it signed. I'm dealing with a situation where my brother's last wish won't be used because he was working an outage at the paper mill and didn't get his new will signed because of the hours he was working. We found it unopened and unsigned. Sad state of affairs.

Sad situation but solid advice. I've been figuring on mine recently.

Here’s something else to think about. My dad passed away in 2014. My mom passed in last February. After my dad died, we contemplated adding my brother and I to the deed of their property so as to not lose it one day. My mom ended up getting dementia and spent the last 4 years of her life not even living there. However, my parents were very frugal and we were able to to pay all medical care and bills with cash. When my mom died there was less than $1K in the account. We just closed on their property yesterday. If we would have put our names on the deed in 2014 we would have to go to that market value and anything over that would be a capital gains to be paid takes on. Since we didn’t, it is compared to todays present market and it 0’s out. But if my parents had not saved money like that had(and we had to sell another property) I guess we would have lost their property. Definitely something to think about though.

My wife has a cousin who recently died while at his lawyers office to sign his new will. He was at the table and had a heart attack before signing. Someone found an old signed will but if they had not, my wife would have received a portion of his estate.

I’m on all dads accounts except for the house. Wonder if I can do a bill of sale for a certain amount per month, until his death then the house becomes mine?

Don’t leave things to chance. This is all good advice, if you or your parents have anything, figure out a way to keep it. A good Family estate lawyer and/or CPA can be invaluable.
Deciding whether to put assets in a child’s name (gift) or wait and Will it at death is a gamble also. Taxes vs nursing home expenses…
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Make sure you have power of attorney in place. It will save thousands and plenty of headaches. I had to go before a judge to get conservatorship which is a watered down version. Of power of attorney. It cost us around 8000 dollars.

I have been told as far as property and housing goes, put it in the name of a trust and whoever you want to have it, make them the beneficiaries of the trust. It avoids capital gains taxes

I am going to do a revocable living trust for just these reasons. Makes it a whole lot easier if something happens, but also for the kids when we die. Not having to probate is huge.

Just went through this with my brother that passed. That guy had everything planned out and paid for down to extra death cert. He had a TOD Time of Death trust.

Adding to this from a medical standpoint…make sure you have a power of attorney and have your wishes laid out so it’s not on them to make the decisions. I deal with this all the time in the hospital where people think they are killing their family member with multi organ failure and continue to put people through the ringer because they don’t want to be the one to “pull the plug” so to speak. I told my wife I know where I’m going when I die, I don’t want anything crazy if it don’t look good and will have it written out detailing it all for her or other peoples sake.

Working with my stubborn dad on this currently. My mom passed away unexpectedly a little over a month ago. It’s been rough to say the least, but my dad is so lost with not planning anything. Luckily he remembered a life insurance policy for mom. I’ve been going through everything and he has no idea on planning anything. He’s excuse is I’ll be dead so I don’t care what happens. It’s not like he has anything. Several hundred acres, three houses, several collector cars, but does t want to put anything on paper for some reason. I guess it’s a realization of death. I’m in banking, specifically wealth banking and I see the benefits of a well planned estate regardless of assets including medical directives, but having an incredibly difficult time getting dad to realize that he worked hard for his assets and that it would seem he would want to have some inclination of how he wants things to be.

My mom is currently going through this now with my grandma. She already has power of attorney but was told she needs conservatorship in order to sign for my grandmother on a real estate transaction. Grandma has dementia and can’t write her own name.

I’m curious about the expense b/c thus far she hasn’t incurred much costs in the path to conservatorship.

Buckhunter, my brother and I only had the POA on my mom. We were able to perform any transaction she would’ve done. We did ours with the word “or” and not “and”. We live an hour apart so we didn’t both have to sign something.

We had to pay our attorney, court fees, my dad had to have an attorney represent him so we had to pay him. We also had to pay professional social workers to say my father couldn't retake care of his finances.

A revocable trust does make probate easy but it will not protect assets from a nursing home debt or creditors. You would have to have an irrevocable trust for that. Even with an irrevocable trust then there is a 5 year look back period that you have to take into account.

Wife and I did medical questionnaire, power of attorney, and will a couple years ago. Only cost about $350 for the both of us.

If you 're an only child , it won't be too bad , without a will , life estate and such , depending on his last days. If you have siblings and /or nieces and nephews via a deceased sibling it could get to be a tangled mess at the courthouse really quick.

Correct , if you want to fix property and assets to remain protected and keep them in the family in the future, irrevocable is the way to go. I believe 99 years is the limit in Alabama.

Important to have good trust will and estate attorney. Definitely have power of attorney for healthcare and financial.