Your Money: How to deal With the Paperwork Scramble After a Spouse Dies

Amidst the anguish of mourning the loss of a beloved spouse, the stress can be compounded by the process and paperwork of changing the title of all the assets that were jointly owned to now having a sole owner. The process – probate – can by time-consuming, expensive, and public, which is why many people try to avoid it if possible.

Financial adviser David Demming out of Aurora, Ohio recommends that clients with simple family structures use “pay-on-death” or “transfer-on-death” designations on all assets, rather than the legal structure of an estate trust. “If you are not trying to control from the grave, you don’t need a trust,” Demming said.

If a family dynamic is more complex financial advisers recommend legally structuring assets in trusts, regardless of the total amount of your assets. This can be especially important for blended families and those with special needs. Qualified retirement accounts like IRAs and 401(k)s, pensions and joint life insurance policies come with varying sets of rules about how they are inherited by spouses.

See Beth Pinsker, Your Money: How to deal With the Paperwork Scramble After a Spouse Dies, Reuters, June 18, 2018.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.) for bringing this article to my attention.