NFR You're Going to Die

Non-fishing related
JayB

JayB

Life of the Party
Eventually. Or so I hear.

For the past year or so my "default activity" has been dealing with the legal and logistical issues that came about when an increasingly eccentric uncle who'd self-estranged from the family about a decade ago died suddenly and left behind an estate that was about as literally and metaphorically messy as possible. As in "He's been hoarding the family home into oblivion for the past 40 years, there are multiple vehicles on the property, and no one has any idea how to get keys to the house or access to any financial documents" messy. And roughly 2,000 miles away.

This was a ~1,000SF house, and it took a professional cleaning crew that specializes in biohazardous cleaning a full month to clean and decontaminate the house, and the tab ran to $60K, which - frankly - seemed like a bargain. "Looks like at some point he was no longer able to access the restroom and took to using bottles and buckets..."Before that came waiting months for a probate court to hear our case and grant us the legal status necessary to settle his affairs, meanwhile the bills for utilities, insurance, etc kept piling up.

Before that we had a situation in my family where a very beloved relative sustained a TBI and slowly decayed in a vegetative state for months. Once again bills were piling up, and it was only someone finding what looked like a password to their laptop on a post-it note in a filing cabinet made it possible to access the financial accounts and insurance information that made it possible to navigate through very tricky financial territory before they passed away. The financial stuff was the easy part. Everyone in the family having their own opinion about when they would want us to throw in the towel and let them pass away was much more difficult.

I realize this is a "Sir - this is a fly-fishing forum" sort of post, but since the demo on this site skews older and I'm in a position to certify that you do, in fact, want to avoid probate and that multiple people attempting to divine when someone would want to pull the plug isn't a pleasant experience for anyone, I thought I'd pass along three key takeaways for anyone that's in the 50+ demo that might help someone else:

1) Make a will. IMO paying someone to do if for you is money well spent. For bonus points update it every 5 years.
2) Make a folder that contains all of your financial assets, insurance policies, and passwords and let 1-2 trusted people in your family know where to find it.
3) Look into end-of-life planning. When we were going through the awful "What would they want" situation described above, I found myself thinking "Someone should make an app where you can just hold-up your phone and archive a video where you describe the sort of end-of-life care you want, so that your loved ones aren't left guessing." Since that time - it seems like that wish has been granted, and there are now lots of apps out there that make it easy to avoid making things hard on the folks that you've left behind.

End-of-Life Planning: There’s an App for That

Crossroads defines four end-of-life planning apps to help patients and families prepare.
www.crossroadshospice.com www.crossroadshospice.com
www.nerdwallet.com

Dealing With Death? There’s an App for That - NerdWallet

End-of-life planning apps aim to ease the difficult, complex and expensive process of preparing for death and navigating life after loss
www.nerdwallet.com www.nerdwallet.com

Mind you, if I go first my wife will still be cursing me for afflicting her with the task of disposing of an inordinate amount of fishing, skiing, climbing, kayaking/rafting gear and books "Who the hell are Will and Ariel Durant and WTF do we have all 11 volumes of their 'Story of Civilization' taking up 3 feet of shelf-space?" "He had 30 years to convert all of this *ProTube* BS in to actual flies..." but at least she'll know when to pull the plug and where all of the money is....
 
Agree 100%. Complete will and trust estate planning and update it every 5 years or so. Simplify possessions and accounts. Communicate your wishes in writing and verbally. Downsize crap!
 
I'll also say, it's not just younger relatives that have to deal with this. Think of your husband/wife.

Watching someone struggle through setting up utilities and deal with insurance and banking and the rest because it was all in their partner's name is rough to see. Especially since it could easily be avoided by following @JayB 's advice about keeping all the info/passwords/directives in a safe place.
 
All great advice based on all the things I've learned over the past five plus years in my duties as POA for a elderly relative.
I'll add this one as well on top of a health care directive, especially if someone is in poor health and is frequently hospitalized or in a care facility.
SF

Portable Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST)

The 1992 amendments to the Washington State Natural Death Act direct the Department of Health to: "adopt guidelines and protocols for how emergency medical personnel shall respond when summoned to the site of an injury or illness for the treatment of a person who has signed a written directive...
doh.wa.gov doh.wa.gov

Edit, one other important thing that may not be easy for some folks to talk about, but try and get their burial wishes.
Do they want a funeral, a gathering of just family and friends, do they want to be cremated, where do they want to be buried etc?
Knowing these things going in makes the process easier for all involved and removes any guess work as to what their true and final wishes would have been.
Also look for documents containing pre-paid funeral services and burial plots. That stuff can get lost in the shuffle, especially if it was purchased years ago.
 
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This...

Have had a family member in hospice care now for a couple months, and unable to verbalize much at all, and so it was fortunate that a POA and healthcare directive were in place prior to the unfolding of all this.
Makes what is a sad and stressful time just a little bit easier to navigate, when most of the administrative and financial issues are clearly defined regarding the who, what etc.
There's plenty of things that you will look back on and be grateful for regarding the early planning with a situation like this, so don't for a minute think it won't happen to you, or someone in your family, and for sure don't think you're too young to worry about it.
 
Yep. I'm dealing with this now, in a fashion. Good advice in this thread. We've got everything legal sorted (houses, cars, financials, ect.) and set away through the move, and mom, my wife and I are going down to the attorney to get everything updated as soon as we're settled a bit.
 
x2...and a capable executor identified in the will is absolutely essential. In our case it's one of our children who is routinely updated on any changes to assets, passwords, etc.
I've been the court appointed executor on a messy estate in which no executor had been identified, and it took a load of personal time to resolve over the course of a year.
 
Lots of great advice here. I had to setup a trust when my dad died. Then had to work thru the estate stuff when my mom died. Took a lot of work and time.

The only thing one should consider is having a non-family member being the Executor. Too many emotions and widely varying expectations. I lost my relationship with a sibling. Not worth it...
 
We did all that a few years ago, and I probably tell our kids where the paperwork is every six months or so.

And I routinely offer to help my friends with their estates

IMG_1948.jpeg
 
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Stonedfish said:
All great advice based on all the things I've learned over the past five plus years in my duties as POA for a elderly relative.
I'll add this one as well on top of a health care directive, especially if someone is in poor health and is frequently hospitalized or in a care facility.
SF

Portable Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST)

The 1992 amendments to the Washington State Natural Death Act direct the Department of Health to: "adopt guidelines and protocols for how emergency medical personnel shall respond when summoned to the site of an injury or illness for the treatment of a person who has signed a written directive...
doh.wa.gov doh.wa.gov

Edit, one other important thing that may not be easy for some folks to talk about, but try and get their burial wishes.
Do they want a funeral, a gathering of just family and friends, do they want to be cremated, where do they want to be buried etc?
Knowing these things going in makes the process easier for all involved and removes any guess work as to what their true and final wishes would have been.
Also look for documents containing pre-paid funeral services and burial plots. That stuff can get lost in the shuffle, especially if it was purchased years ago.
Click to expand...
I want to be cremated, my ashes mixed with flower petals from the small gathering, and that mixture poured into flowing fresh water by my closest family and whoever they choose. Tell my wife when she logs on for help selling my stuff.
 
my son will paddle most of my ashes out on a fave old surfboard at the hike in surf spot that was our winter go to for decades, and scatter them over the reef. The surfboard he'll paddle survived waves of consequence around the world, getting me back to the beach or boat with both of us still in one piece. The ashes not scattered will be mixed with resin and brushed onto the deck of the surfboard, which as a wall hanger will be a reminder of those special moments we shared together.
IMG_20221216_211610585.jpgn the salt
 
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I sat on a retirement board for decades. It was not at all unusual that an employee would die and a previous spouse would still be listed as the pension (and life insurance) beneficiary....despite the fact that we frequently sent out emails reminding employees to make certain their beneficiary was current. There's literally no way to legally recover from such an injustice...by law the pension proceeds must go to the named beneficiary.
 
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PhilR said:
We did all that a few years ago, and I probably tell our kids where the paperwork is every six months or so.

And I routinely offer to help my friends with their estates

View attachment 126538
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well that seems a tad selfish.... 🤷‍♂️
 
clarkman said:
well that seems a tad selfish.... 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
I think of it as a selfless gift, easing the grieving widow of the burden of disposing of such material objects.
 
I once was the beneficiary of such an oversight...
Woman had a bunch of fly gear and art at a garage sale. Sage 12 wt priced at 30.00 caught my eye, so asked if she had other fishing gear.
Brought out a box with a Billy Pate reel, Ross reels, some lines, a mix of rods,and framed signed fish art and other stuff. All the gear was like new, perfect shape.
I told her flat out the stuff she had was worth hundreds, and that there was no way she should be selling it for these prices. She explained her husband bought it for a big trip after he retired, used it once, and just didn't fish again.
Pointed her towards some resources where I thought she could get fair value for it, and she just said give me 300 bucks and it's yours...so I went and got the cash, came back, and there was another box of gear in the pile.

I tried....
 
One of my dirtball bosses focused his attention on contacting recently widowed spouses of WWII veterans in the hope of scamming them out of the now classic vintage Rolex watches of that era. I was relieved when he bemoaned the fact that the internet was making the widows and heirs much more knowledgeable regarding their true market value.

When my father died many years ago the Social Security representative visiting my mother immediately began pressing her about buying any firearms my father might have had.

Fortunately I had just come home from overseas on emergency leave for his funeral and could put a quick stop to that bullshit.

A close second is the bullshit the death industry vultures use to extract money at a family's time of great emotional weakness.
 
krusty said:
I sat on a retirement board for decades. It was not at all unusual that an employee would die and a previous spouse would still be listed as the pension (and life insurance) beneficiary....despite the fact that we frequently sent out emails reminding employees to make certain their beneficiary was current. There's literally no way to legally recover from such an injustice...by law the pension proceeds must go to the named beneficiary.
Click to expand...
Bit of thread drift, but reminds me of a time when I was working at an investment company and the higher-ups decided to aggregate statements by Social Security numbers instead of mailing addresses without doing much to inform clients about the impending change before it occurred.

"Hi - I'm calling because there's an error on my statement. The statement has the correct address, but it it lists another woman as the joint owner of the account and the children's names are all wrong....oh, wait...."
 
JayB said:
Bit of thread drift, but reminds me of a time when I was working at an investment company and the higher-ups decided to aggregate statements by Social Security numbers instead of mailing addresses without doing much to inform clients about the impending change before it occurred.

"Hi - I'm calling because there's an error on my statement. The statement has the correct address, but it it lists another woman as the joint owner of the account and the children's names are all wrong....oh, wait...."
Click to expand...
....which, no doubt, led to some interesting conversations over the dinner table.

The main issues tend to occur when an employee dies prior to retirement. Most of the beneficiary problems get straightened out at the very detailed pre-retirement face to face meetings with current spouses.

Years ago we had a lot of husbands stupidly (and selfishly) select straight retirements because the annuity paid the most ....but ended with the husband's death. Frequently the surviving spouse would only find out about the end of the pension when their husband died and the checks stopped arriving. Sad situation.

We solved that problem by making it mandatory that spouses attend the pre-retirement meeting where the implications of a straight pension are clearly spelled out and the spouse must sign off on not receiving a continuing pension.

In the case of employees that unexpectedly died before retirement, but were qualified to retire, the resulting pension automatically continued for the beneficiary.
 
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