Short version: Faced with mortality I wanted to do everything I could do for my wife. My previous assumptions about the transfer of property were wrong and would have caused my wife a lot of undue stress. I'll be taking steps to ensure she has immediate access to everything as well as legal documents to support her as needed.
Freakin novella:
So a couple weeks ago I received some fairly ambiguous and uncomfortable news that caused me to really think about the state I'd be leaving my beloved wife in if I were to die. original post
It felt great to know that her promising career and our financial position would carry her through the worst case scenario, but I also identified a number of of things that I should address and I believe they may apply to some of you. It's become a bit of a stereotype that only fiscal nerds and the elderly need to be concerned with stuff like this, but I'm a reasonably healthy 28 year old that just left the Army and I spent the last two weeks scrambling to deal with this stuff because of a random blob on an MRI.
First thing is first, I'm not an attorney or finance professional and this is just stuff that I've observed throughout this process. Please feel free to speak up if you disagree with whatever follows; I'd definitely appreciate making sure I'm doing everything I can do here.
1. The first thing that I did after leaving the doctor's office was drive to a lawyer's. It might seem unnecessary and like a waste of money, but I'm glad I did and I wish I had gone sooner. I'm fortunate enough to have access to "free" legal services by virtue of being on active duty; however, I would have happily paid to know that I'm preventing my wife from taking on additional hardship during what would likely be a very already difficult time in her life. Even if you don't have a medical concern, I still strongly recommend doing it because shit happens. A lawyer may also save you from the ramblings of a random man on the internet.
1.A. I, stupidly, believed I understood the way things worked. I thought my wife would inherit everything because she's my wife, right? What's mine is hers, as we often see with posts about brutal divorces, and our situation is very simple (only one beneficiary, no crazy property stuff, etc.). What I didn't consider about that reasoning was that divorce is usually a drawn out legal process under the best of terms. I had wrongly assumed that joint ownership was sort of inferred by virtue of our marriage. My wife almost certainly would have gained access to all my assets, but only after having dealt with a lengthy legal process and piles of paperwork (that shit takes 18 months in Virginia). It makes me ridiculously sad, and upset with myself, to think of my wife dealing with all that stress in the midst of such a traumatic time because she married an idiot know-it-all.
2. My first step toward making life easy on her was making sure she had easy access to my (our) money. We've kept our finances separated because we feel it's a wise choice for newlyweds. I still feel this way; however, our circumstances have changed and I was unwilling to leave her exposed to the risk of the aforementioned stress. There were three options here: handle it using a "Last Will and Testament," add her to my account, or set up a "payment upon death." I'll get into the will thing a little later, but I didn't like it for this situation and my intent. Instead, I chose to add her to the account because she would have (actually has) direct and immediate access to those accounts without dealing with any bureaucracy. The last option is sort of a middle-ground between all the other steps. "Payment upon death" is a way of telling you bank to give all your stuff to someone when you die. This offers protection from the risks of a joint account while circumventing lengthy administrative processes; however, I didn't like the idea of my wife having to prove to some strangers that I was dead. I'm sure this wouldn't be too unreasonable of a process, but I just saw it as another burden for her to deal with as she worked through everything.
3. The next step was making sure she had access to the investments I made. This was easy because I'm behind a lot of you and only have holdings in a few mutual funds. Those holdings are linked to my banking accounts and I've left my wife with a detailed explanation of what they are and how to deal with them, sell them, etc. I also explained the order in which I believe she should sell them and the scenarios that would justify doing so.
4. The final asset to worry about was my car. If the worst happens and my death is inevitable, I'll trade in both of our cars so that she can have one brand new one and remove one more potential stress factor during that time. For now, I'm just working on adding her as a joint owner so that she has more control (as with the bank account) and won't be subject to the bureaucracy I keep mentioning.
5. The "silver bullet" for addressing any of my oversights in preparation for my wife having to deal with all my assets during this process is a general durable power of attorney. There's a huge amount of risk exposure here, as with joint bank accounts, because this allows someone to legally act on your behalf. I can't begin to tell you how many guys I've watched meltdown Afghanistan because their wife took everything and divorced them using that power of attorney. That being said, I have complete faith in my wife and you can also set these up to have a limited scope or scale (e.g. timeframe, what it applies to, etc.). Mine will also be secured in a safety deposit box with other key documents that she'll be able to access if I die.
6. My last main effort has been compiling a massive document of everything. This document will also be in the safety deposit box and will contain login information for literally everything (bank stuff, credit cards, utilities, car loan, computers, social media, Netflix, etc.). It also contains details on how and when various bills are paid, where spare keys for the cars are, the type of oil her car needs, the order in which to sell investments, advice on financially moving forward (you guys make an appearance), approximate values for any of my stuff that happens to be valuable so that she doesn't get taken advantage of, contact information for the attorney, etc. This is literally just a giant pile of everything, almost like a reference book for me. My intent here was to provide her with more information than necessary because I don't want her to deal with the stress of something working through Netflix password recovery when she moves.
7. I previously mentioned that a "Last Will and Testament" wasn't ideal for my circumstances. The truth is, relying solely on one would have done a shitty job of fulfilling my intent here. I don't have a lot of stuff and I want my wife to have everything, so some massive undertaking isn't necessary to ensure the proper transfer of my "estate." These documents certainly have their purpose, but in my case this document was only slightly better than relying on community property laws and probate. The common expectation, at least in my experience, is that the bereaved sit down in an office with lots of hardwood and leather-bound books while a stuffy man with a stack of paper quickly takes care of the rest. After speaking with an attorney, this really didn't seem to be the case. I ended up having one drawn up to serve as a tertiary contingency plan in the event that this somehow becomes what is best for my wife, but I really didn't like it and hope she won't rely on it because my previous steps were effective.
8. The last thing I did was an advanced medical directive. In the interest of saving my wife from having to deal with the reality of deciding whether or not I should die I went ahead and did it myself. I outlined the criteria for which medical staff will have to follow and I set limits on what I was comfortable with with regard to prolonging my life. This in and of itself was worth the trip because I know the scenario that this could apply to would tear my wife apart.
So, all that being said- is there anything else I can do here?
Submitted May 02, 2018 at 02:34PM by Snicklefreetz https://ift.tt/2rhW8hD
