Ask Liz Weston

Get smart with your money

Estate Planning

Your kids don’t want your stuff

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Estate appraiser Julie Hall advises downsizing clients not to take it personally when their adult kids don’t want their furniture and other possessions. But when Hall asked her 23-year-old daughter what she might want from the four-bedroom family home, the younger woman mentioned just three items.

“And I said, ‘Out of this whole house? Honey, we have nice things!’” says Hall, author of several books, including “How to Clean Out Your Parents’ Estate in 30 Days or Less.” “I started to sound like my clients.”

In my latest for the Associated Press, how to not take it personally when your kids don’t want your treasures.

Thursday’s need-to-know money news

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Today’s top story: Writing a will? How to stop stalling and get it done. Also in the news: Hidden financing traps in car shopping, how to protect yourself in the Words with Friends data breach, and the big wedding expense nearly half of married couples regret.

Writing a Will? How to Stop Stalling and Get It Done
Make things easier for your loved ones.

Car Shopping? Don’t Fall for These Hidden Financing Traps
Avoiding the extended warranty trap.

How to Protect Yourself in the ‘Words with Friends’ Data Breach
200 million users are affected.

Nearly half of married couples regret this big wedding expense
This one might surprise you.

How to quit stalling and write your will

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You know you should have a will, but you keep stalling. No one likes to think about dying or about someone else raising their children. But if you get no further than scribbling notes or thinking about which lawyer to hire, you risk dying “intestate” — without a will that could guide your loved ones, head off family feuds and potentially save your family thousands of dollars.

Financial planners say getting people to stop procrastinating on this important money chore can be tough. In my latest for the Associated Press, several advisors offer their best strategies for getting this done.

Q&A: Here’s a primer on all those estate planning documents

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Dear Liz: Our dad’s kidneys are failing. Our mother passed away awhile ago, so it’s just me and my sister. He has a will, and my sister is on his bank account, but how do we handle the house transfer? Do we need a living will? We don’t want it to go into probate. We are splitting everything equally.

Answer: Losing a parent is stressful, so it’s good that you have your father’s estate-planning document to guide you. If it was properly drawn, it will name an executor who will handle the details of settling his bills, paying his creditors and transferring his remaining assets to his heirs.

If the executor happens to be you or your sister, you’ll be able to hire an attorney to help you and pay for it out of the estate’s assets. Having an attorney can help make the process much smoother and help avoid potentially costly mistakes.

You asked about a living will, but that’s a document designed to communicate someone’s wishes regarding end-of-life medical care. Living trusts are the documents that can avoid probate, the court process that otherwise follows death.

In many states, including California, probate also can be avoided with a “transfer on death” deed. If your father is still able to make decisions, you might want to hire the attorney now to advise you about which document makes the most sense.

Q&A: Mom’s 94; one son handles her money, another wants more access to it

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Dear Liz: I have two younger brothers, and the youngest was chosen as the executor of our widowed mother’s estate. The problem is that he doesn’t understand financials. Mom is 94. Her entire estate is invested in blue-chip stocks. The portfolio was carefully planned by our uncle and closely tracks the Dow Jones industrial average. With her present holdings, she has enough to live indefinitely in her nursing home.

Her portfolio is up 40% in the last two years, but my brother is worried that the stock market is going to crash. She could give me up to $15,000 a year, but he’s telling her $500 a month for each brother is good. I’m a retired electrical engineer and have managed contracts for the military worth many millions of dollars. Can I challenge my brother’s ability to manage our mother’s finances?

Answer: Sure, if you want to open up an all-out family war at this stage of your life. A better approach might be a collaborative one, in which the three brothers seek outside, expert advice to handle Mom’s affairs.

You might have been terrific at managing military contracts, but that doesn’t give you the background in taxes, estate planning and investment management that’s required in this situation. You may be overestimating how much her portfolio has grown — the Dow is up about 25% in the last two years, not 40% — while underestimating both the risk of a downturn and the effect of larger withdrawals.

Your brother, meanwhile, is understandably concerned about a portfolio that’s 100% invested in stocks. That would be a lot of risk, even if your mom had decades to ride out any downturn (which, obviously, she doesn’t). Remember that the stock market lost roughly half its value a decade ago and lost about 90% during the Great Depression.

If your mom’s portfolio could take such a hit and still produce enough for her to live on, then larger distributions might make sense. Maximizing the annual gift tax exclusion, which allows her to give away $15,000 a person without filing gift tax returns, may be desirable if her estate is worth more than $11 million and could be subject to estate taxes. If she’s not wealthy, though, distributing $45,000 each year to three of you could increase her risk of running out of money.

A fee-only financial planner could analyze that risk and recommend a prudent course of action. The planner also could help arrange the necessary documents that would allow your brother to manage your mom’s financial affairs. Right now, it’s not clear whether those are in place.

Your brother is not yet the executor, because your mother is still alive and executors are in charge of distributing an estate after someone dies. If she wants him to make decisions for her should she become incapacitated, she should give him her power of attorney or name him as the successor trustee of her living trust. Otherwise, he probably would need to go to court to be named conservator.

It may rankle that your mom put him in charge of her estate, rather than you. If he’s trustworthy, though, you should put aside the idea of challenging him for control, especially if your main motivation is to get your inheritance early. Instead, offer to assist him in finding the professional advice he needs to help your mother and work together to make sure her remaining years are as free of family drama as possible.

Q&A: There can be legal pitfalls in DIY estate planning

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Dear Liz: You answered a letter from a reader who was asked to be the executor of a friend’s estate. The reader was worried about being pulled into a lawsuit because the friend planned to disinherit a brother. You mentioned that the friend’s estate will pay the legal fees and other expenses if the brother contests the will and that executors can be compensated for their time. You also should have mentioned the importance of hiring an experienced attorney when disinheriting someone because there are a lot of ways this can go wrong.

Answer: Even Nolo, the self-help legal publisher, warns people that they need to hire an attorney if their estate plans are likely to be contested. A do-it-yourself estate plan can wind up costing far more than it saves if the parties wind up in court.