The great on-line account in the sky!

alanwsg

I've been thinking about death recently.

Well, Ok ... actually I've been reviewing my will and it strikes me that I have a great deal of dosh in on-line accounts and fixed-rate bonds that have no paper record of them at all. If you searched my house from top to bottom you wouldn't find any trace of hundreds of thousands of pounds that I have stashed away in bank servers around the country.

The details are all on my PC but no one will be able to get them as they're encrypted ( passwordsafe ) and you won't guess the password. Most of the people I've left money to wouldn't know what a "password safe" was anyway.

I have no family or dependents so it wouldn't be a disaster for anyone, it's just an annoying thought that the banks (or who?) would benefit from my untimely demise rather than my friends. Just wondering if anyone else has given any thought to what might happen when they finally pop their clogs?

Lokolo

This is quite my problem to. Also, how do people know which banks I bank with? For example, my Egg savings, I have no documents about them so how does anyone know I bank with Egg!?

Crazy.

I am tempted to make a googledoc and its on my igoogle page, which people cna access if they have the right password.... but where do I put this password? Oh what do I do.

KingL

This came up a while back and IIRC the general consensus was to give your executor a paper list of the banks and account numbers (not passwords or anything). This would be sufficient for the probate process to get at it all. I guess you could alternatiively leave the list in a sealed envelope at a solicitors and tell your executor where it is.

Ensure sure you make everyone spend a night in a haunted house, won't you?

D1zzy

I keep a list in a spreadsheet which I print off & file each month - it includes Bank; Account name; current balance, maturity dates for fixes, and end dates for bonuses. No account details but I assume in the event of my death that would be enough to get at the dosh

Biggles

I have a 'Dead Dad' file in which I put all kinds of details like these, was well as my stockbroker accounts, where the will is stored, premium bond numbers etc etc.

Everyone knows where the 'Dad Dad' file is, and that should be all they need to know.

BruceyBonus

I have a folder in which I keep my recent bank statements and correspondence. In the front of the file, I keep an update to date list which shows where I have accounts and the account number. My relatives know that I keep this list, so if anything did happen to me, they would know exactly who to contact.

KingL

Coupla earlier threads on it:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1403783
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=34167

Gymgenius

Biggles wrote: »

I have a 'Dead Dad' file in which I put all kinds of details like these, was well as my stockbroker accounts, where the will is stored, premium bond numbers etc etc.

Everyone knows where the 'Dad Dad' file is, and that should be all they need to know.

I've been thinking about doing the same thing, and as bad as it is to think of becoming a dead dad, it's a really good idea.

Reaper

The BSA run the "My Lost Account" web page. I have not tried it but I believe can be used by executors too, though ideally you should have an idea which companies it might be with.

http://www.mylostaccount.org.uk/

From their FAQ:

Advice on searching in respect of wills and legacies

There are instances where the executors of wills have reason to believe that there are accounts missing from the personal financial records available to them. In these circumstances we recommend a search of the six largest banks, the use of the geographical facility for building societies and a search of NS&I.

zedyy

alanwsg wrote: »

I've been thinking about death recently.

Well, Ok ... actually I've been reviewing my will and it strikes me that I have a great deal of dosh in on-line accounts and fixed-rate bonds that have no paper record of them at all. If you searched my house from top to bottom you wouldn't find any trace of hundreds of thousands of pounds that I have stashed away in bank servers around the country.

The details are all on my PC but no one will be able to get them as they're encrypted ( passwordsafe ) and you won't guess the password. Most of the people I've left money to wouldn't know what a "password safe" was anyway.

I have no family or dependents so it wouldn't be a disaster for anyone, it's just an annoying thought that the banks (or who?) would benefit from my untimely demise rather than my friends. Just wondering if anyone else has given any thought to what might happen when they finally pop their clogs?

I'm sure there's a central database where the government can find out what account/s you have since thats how they cotton-on to people who are money laundering and people who are cheating the benifit system.

oh and you can send a few quid my way if you don't know what to do with it :beer:

cloud_dog

I use TiddlyWiki to document virtually everything. Tiddlywiki is useful because it is just a simple wiki (but very powerful), uses a single HTML page, but allows you to structure and tag your content.

This file lives on our shared NAS so any home computer can access it (the file itself is bookmarked in the browsers and referenced in our wills), and I update it periodically.

It doesn't hold any sensitive info but provides that important awareness. It covers:

• Life Insurance
• Bank Accounts
• Savings Accounts
• Investment Accounts
• Pension Accounts
• CTF
• Mortgage details (any tie ins etc)
• Credit Cards (any 0% deals etc)
• Household Details (insurance, central heating, utilities, etc, etc)
• Cars (MOT, insurance, tax, breakdown cover servicing (where etc), etc)
• WWW (ISP, e-mail accounts)
• PC Stuff (software licences etc, where / which PC's. Free s/ware annual renewal etc)

I've also included a useful section for my wife Things You Need to Know & Things You Need To Do regarding what she should do with savings, investments, pensions, any debt, mortgage, credit cards, what things she needs to cancel (unemployment ins / breakdown cover. for me etc) basically how she should approach moving forward financially.

The most important thing is, I point her to MSE if she needs genuine independent help - so if needs be, please be nice to her

EDIT: Theres also a version which can be encrypted (TiddlyFolio) for personal / secure data.

EDIT EDIT: You may have noticed I'm a big fan of Tiddlywiki, in fact I use a variance Tiddly wiki TeamTasks at work