Dying tidy

Savvy_Sue

chesky wrote: »

No, not necessarily. My solicitor advised me to make a list of little things and attach it to the will. You know, things like the Clariss Cliffe vase for Francesca and the picture in the bedroom for Henry. Things that are too small for the will but they're always the things that people get upset about. You know 'she always said I could have the ruby ring'.

Mum's solicitor suggested that as far as possible these items should be given away before death, to avoid the upset! Especially as you do read about items 'disappearing' before the will's even been found.

jackieblack

chesky wrote: »

No, not necessarily. My solicitor advised me to make a list of little things and attach it to the will. You know, things like the Clariss Cliffe vase for Francesca and the picture in the bedroom for Henry. Things that are too small for the will but they're always the things that people get upset about. You know 'she always said I could have the ruby ring'.

:eek:


My dad was the executor of the will of a long standing family friend. She left just such a list, in additon to her will.
The will left bequests to various distant family members, friends and charities, with the residuary of the estate to be split 6 ways.
Dad was told, by the solicitor, that because the items on the list she left were considered part of the residuary of the estate (most things have some value, however little) he needed to get the written agreement of each of the 6 beneficiaries of the residuary that the items on the list could be distributed per her wishes, as not including these would reduce the value of the residuary.
The solicitor said that these things should have been included in the will.
Had any of the 6 beneficiaries of the residuary not agreed, the items could not have been distributed according to her wishes and would have been absorbed into the residuary of the estate.
Had they been listed in the will, there would have been no problem.

aliasojo

Oh my life! As if I haven't got enough to organise for living, I now need to organise dying too.

Only kidding.

Good thread OP and one which we should all really take note of if we haven't organised these things ourselves already.

I have things all over the shop that I would need to document. I know exactly in my head where everything is but for OH it would be like walking into a messy room and looking for a single notebook, he wouldn't stand a chance.

Mmmmmm, maybe I wont bother, I quite like the idea of looking down from my big fluffy cloud and watching him struggle to make sense of all the things he studiously avoided over the years and dumped on me to handle. Is that bad? :rotfl:

Errata

It's something worth thinking sensibly about. For instance as an example, leaving half a dozen Clarice Cliff ceramics to a friend in a list of 'wishes' could easily add up to £10k. That might not go down too well with the two grandchildren who were bequeathed only £5k each in the will.

Savvy_Sue

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Mum's solicitor suggested that as far as possible these items should be given away before death, to avoid the upset! Especially as you do read about items 'disappearing' before the will's even been found.

jackieblack wrote: »

My dad was the executor of the will of a long standing family friend. She left just such a list, in additon to her will.
The will left bequests to various distant family members, friends and charities, with the residuary of the estate to be split 6 ways.
Dad was told, by the solicitor, that because the items on the list she left were considered part of the residuary of the estate (most things have some value, however little) he needed to get the written agreement of each of the 6 beneficiaries of the residuary that the items on the list could be distributed per her wishes, as not including these would reduce the value of the residuary.
The solicitor said that these things should have been included in the will.
Had any of the 6 beneficiaries of the residuary not agreed, the items could not have been distributed according to her wishes and would have been absorbed into the residuary of the estate.
Had they been listed in the will, there would have been no problem.

And another reason for giving these things away before death, if you can / feel able, is that you then don't have to update your will every time one of these items gets lost / is sold / breaks / you discover that tatty painting you picked up at a jumble sale you were going to leave to your neighbour because they always admired it turns out to be a missing Picasso worth more than all the rest of your estate! (and maybe your neighbour always suspected as much ...)

Mind you, I'm already expecting a bit of an upset when Mum dies. There's a particular item which two of my siblings always wanted, and so did I, and she gave it to me a few years ago. I don't know if they know that ... if they don't, they'll ask when she goes!

chesky

I'm afraid the goods on my list won't go anywhere near £10k - I wish! No, maybe £1,000 on a good day and I don't see why they should increase my estate, giving more to the Treasury. As for giving them away before I pop my clogs - well, no, because I actually enjoy them and use them.

Savvy_Sue

chesky wrote: »

As for giving them away before I pop my clogs - well, no, because I actually enjoy them and use them.

Oh absolutely, if you're using them and enjoying them, you hang onto them!

(A friend was telling me about another friend who is buying a flat to let out as an investment. The flat buyer mostly lives abroad, and won't be keeping a home in the UK, so all her furniture needs to go into storage, to the new flat or be got rid of. They aren't hearing what the estate agent is saying about the need to put in reasonably modern furniture, and want to put their dining chairs in the flat, because they belonged to their grandparents! This means re-covering said chairs, because their fabric covers aren't fire resistant to modern standards. You do wonder if it isn't time to pension the chairs off ... but maybe they're going in the will.)

newbutold

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Won't all our photos be automatically tagged on Facebook or google by then? :mad:

Sorry, drives me nuts as I'm quite a private person who does NOT plaster her photo all over the internet, several of DH's friends from Uni are clearly digitising their old photos and tagging me, which I would really prefer them NOT to do!!!

Do you know you can change your fb settings so that fb has to ask you to approve any tags before they appear for all to see.

Savvy_Sue

newbutold wrote: »

Do you know you can change your fb settings so that fb has to ask you to approve any tags before they appear for all to see.

Does that work if I'm not 'friends' with the people who tag me? I have very few friends ... :rotfl:

cestlavie

my late aunt had written on a lot of her possessions the name of the person they were to be given to, some items even had stickers on them. this helped me a great deal as a lot of the stuff was not of value and i would have given it away to charity shops if they had not been tagged. it was great to know that they were going to the right place/person, even if the recipient was somewhat surprised to get some oddball item out the blue! sadly though on another occasion one of my relatives had written in ink in a lot of her books "this is really valuable first editon" which of course instantly meant the item was not!

the writing on the back of old photos is a great idea and i also asked my parents to write in a book the provenance of some of their possesions - eg where they got it, why they got it etc. it allows the meaning of things to pass on which i think is a wonderful thing. something you value highly may mean nothing to someone else without its history..

for myself i am slowly de-cluttering as best i can. having been an executor on several occasions i know what a difficult job it is to do and like the op think dying tidy is a great gift to give your family. hopefully i will have a few more years yet before i kick the bucket but one never knows. i should head off now into the attic rather than be here..