Reply to Is it normal for parents (70s) to not have told their kids anything about estate planning?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]...*This isn't about money, we're not expecting large inheritances or anything, it's because I've had friends recently whose parents have passed and it's been incredibly time consuming and stressful (and in one incident destroyed her marriage).[/quote]

I think many PPs have missed the above sentence from the OP and also have not been through the death/incapacitation of a parent or MIL/FIL.  Leaving inheritance aside, there is a lot that must be done.  My mother (my father died in my teens so I have more limited knowledge of what went on) has everything set up in trusts, POA (health/financial), living wills, etc.  My siblings and I all know she's got a lock box that lists all bank accounts, life insurance, mutual funds, stocks/bonds, etc. that she's got and we all know where the key is.  We don't ALL have to know but at least one of us does.  We know who is authorized to make her health care decisions (my brother who lives near her) and who will be executor of her estate (me).  My sister and I already know our brother will receive more because he needs it more and because he does more for her.

I spent many years living/traveling overseas for development work.  Given the nature of my work, my mother and I met with her attorney to get everything set up in case something happened to me.  Even though I owned no 'real property', there would be plenty of things someone had to do in order to get my stuff, get my final paycheck and dispose of my stuff.

My MIL died 10 years ago and my FIL thought it would be fairly painless to close out her estate because he had 'all this stuff' done by a buddy of his from the Knights of Columbus who did estate planning.  He was wrong.  It was a pain in the ass for him and for us because he had to go through probate and we had to help him.  He was so frustrated by the experience that he went to the attorney DH and I used to do our estate planning.

If we got nothing out of that expense but a POAfor FIL, it would have been completely worth it.  FIL had a massive stroke a year later and having that POA made things much, much easier and less expensive (for one thing, DH didn't have to go to court in order to make health care decisions for his father).  His father never recovered from the stroke and for 2 years, until he died, it was hell.  Thank god for that POA. DH was able to pay FIL's bills, sell his car, sell his house, give gifts in FIL's name to grandkids, etc.

I get there may be hard feelings about inheritance but that's really not where the pain point will be if your parent/IL is incapacitated.  Being able to act on their behalf and make decisions is the greater hell.  People need to plan for that. [/quote]

OP here - yes, thank you.  This is exactly the sort of thing I'm concerned about.  [/quote]

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