Even if you do review your Will regularly, have you worked out a way of leaving adequate instructions for your Executors, particularly if they are not immediate family but friends or professionals? If not we suggest you should, as the cost of sorting things out could be significantly increased. Why not contact us for guidance?
While your heirs may not have the same taste in music as you, inability to access records kept on computer can be a problem.
Airmiles are non-transferrable, but if you can produce a death certificate and a copy of the Will to prove who the beneficiary is they may transfer the account into another name. If you are a busy international traveller, perhaps a specific legacy of your Airmiles would be worthwhile, instead of letting them pass unnoticed as part of your residuary estate?
In other cases finding a safe deposit box may cause a problem – if the executors know there is one. In winding up an estate recently a client close to death, and with no close family, had told us that she had items in safe custody at a bank under an alias, but did not remember the name or where the receipt was. The bank was identified but the branch had closed. A written request to the Head Office denied knowledge of an account in that customers name. After searching page by page through several packing cases of papers, a receipt was found in the last box, and the bank did identify the deposit – but at what a cost in time and effort!
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