George Washington's Will

When you have no friends or family, who do you leave your estate to? Ray Fulk, a 71-year-old eccentric, died alone last summer. Having never been married, no children, and no close relatives or friends, Fulk left the bulk of his estate to 2 1980's actors he never met, Kevin Brophy and Peter  Barton whom he considered “his friends.” Brophy and Barton will split roughly $1 million after Fulk's 160 acres of farm land are sold.  He also left $5,000 to his favorite charity the Anti-Cruelty Society in Chicago.

Fulk’s friend and attorney, Donald Behle, explains:

“Behle had acted as Ray’s attorney in an earlier civil matter, so in December 1997, Ray approached him to draw up his will, including the bequest to Brophy and Barton. I have a copy of the will. In it, Ray refers to Brophy and Barton as ‘my friends.'. . .'I found a couple of letters he had written to them,' says Behle. ‘They sent back responses that basically said thanks for writing and please watch me in whatever their next movie or show was.”

Your hard earned points from loyalty programs with hotels, airlines, and credit cards don't have to go to waste after you die.  According to Randy Petersen, editor of InsideFlyer magazine, U.S. travelers accumulate roughly 3 trillion frequent flyer miles each year.  If you don't do anything with your points and rewards, the value then goes to waste.  By adding your rewards into your will, you are ensuring that all possible assets are identified and distributed based on your wishes. However, there may be some difficulty with security (regarding your accounts) and finding the loop holes in restrictions that certain companies place on their reward programs. For example:

“The Marriott Rewards program for Marriott International Inc hotel chain, only allows spouses or domestic partners to inherit points. American Express Co's credit card rewards program requires a call from an executor before it agrees to send a package of required forms. Hilton HHonors points earned from Hilton Worldwide's hotel brands expire after a year of inactivity.”

Today it seems like nearly everyone has some digital presence.  Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Gmail, almost everyone has some digital assets.  When you start thinking about estate planning, you probably are thinking about the distribution of your assets: your home, car, business and other belongings.  But what about your digital assets?  NBC Chicago reports:

So many of the things you plan to leave behind after death are obvious: real estate, money, jewelry. But increasingly, a number of your assets that aren’t so obvious need to be addressed in planning: your digital assets.

“Your Facebook account, Twitter, that kind of stuff isn’t something you typically go talk to your lawyer about,” said financial writer Katie Hill.

Still, it's an idea she recommends consumers take seriously.

Increasingly, a consumer's digital assets, from online bank accounts to frequent flier and rewards program to social media, are becoming a consideration for estate planning.

“You do want someone to handle these accounts so they’re not floating around in cyberspace for the next 20 years,” said Hill.

Just as you name an executor for tangible assets, financial advisers say you need a digital executor, too; someone who can access your accounts after death. Websites offering that type of service are popping up, though many consumers still opt for the low-tech, hard copy option.

Giving someone the ability to access your personal information can make things a lot easier for your loved ones.  Imagine the headache of having to deal with every company where you had an account (Facebook, Gmail, etc.) and going through each company's different process just to get a handle on the account.  This is […]

Email, Facebook, Twitter, and online banking have become as normal as breathing to most people.  But what happens to these things when a person dies?  The days of sorting through the deceased piles and piles of documents has ended.  Many people today are totally reliant on their digital lives, from preparing and filing tax returns, using banking software to balance a checkbook, to getting all of their bills delivered online or via email.   With things like encryption and passwords, how does someone access all of a person's digital data after they die?  Wealth Strategies Journal reports:

Increasingly, our lives are conducted online. For many of us, the lion's share of our correspondence takes place by email. Our bank, brokerage, credit card, and utilities statements are delivered by email. Recurring expenses are paid automatically from our accounts without any action on our parts; other bills are paid with a few clicks and keystrokes. We rarely write checks. Our photos are collected in virtual albums on our smartphones and on photo sharing websites, rather than in the plastic sleeves of tangible albums on our bookshelves. Our address books are maintained on our smartphones. We file our taxes electronically; we may not even keep hard copies of our returns.

The more tech-savvy among us may even have e-commerce businesses, own the rights to valuable domain names, and write potentially lucrative blogs.

Whether an individual's online activities have independent financial value or are merely the means of accessing hard assets of financial value, this phenomenon has far-reaching implications for estate planning and administration.

When someone dies, an administrative process starts into motion. Information must be gathered: Was there a will? Were there […]