4 Tips for Choosing the Manager of Your Estate
By Solid Serenity Legal Solutions
When you make your estate plan, you have to carefully consider who will manage your assets if you can’t do so yourself. If you are incapacitated, you need someone who can pay your bills and help with your physical care. When you die, you need someone who can organize and distribute your estate.
The best choice for your manager needs a particular set of skills and a certain character to succeed. Here are 4 tips for choosing the manager of your estate.
(1) Choose Someone Trustworthy
The biggest estate issues come when the managers of the estate steal from the estate, and thus, the heirs. Luckily, the issue seems to be rare. But, you want to make sure the person you choose to manage your estate doesn’t have sticky fingers.
You also want to be sure you can trust this person to follow your wishes. Sometimes, heirs will disagree with your choices. You need someone you can trust to fight for your wishes if they need to.
(2) Choose Someone Organized
Your chosen manager will have a lot of documents to sift through. They will need to be able to sort and organize your assets and liabilities. They will be looking at bank statements, retirement accounts, bills, real estate, and all other assets and liabilities you have. You need someone who can organize those documents and understand them.
(3) Choose Someone Who Can Balance Their Lives With the Added Responsibility
Make no mistake. Naming someone as your manager is giving someone a big job. You need to choose someone who can handle the stress and rise to the occasion.
Your son who has 4 children under the age of 18 may not be the best choice. This isn’t because he’s not amazing. He simply may not have the time and energy to take on the role when the time comes.
Choose someone you know either (1) has the right lifestyle to take on the responsibility, or (2) is the go-getter who gets things done no matter the situation.
(4) Choose Someone You Can Talk To
The biggest role of your estate manager is to do what you want with your assets. In order to do their job properly, you have to be able to talk with your chosen manager about heavy things like your incapacity and death.
Your wishes will likely change throughout your life. You need to be able to have those conversations with your chosen manager so they can know what you want–both for your life if you can’t make decisions for yourself, and for your assets when you die.
It is important to have someone in your corner that you feel comfortable discussing these issues with long term.
If you need your estate plan started or reviewed, make an appointment online.