What To Do With Your Estate Planning Documents[Video]

Great job! You’ve gotten your estate planning documents done and you are ready to get to the next step.

But what is the next step?

That’s a question we get asked quite frequently. We figured it would be worthwhile to go through three steps that you can take to make sure you are using your documents and keeping them safe.

What To Do With Your Estate Planning Documents

Physical

So first and foremost is keeping them safe. And this we refer to as physical security. What are we doing with the documents that have been printed out, with signature on them, and keeping them safe?

We also recommend that you place those into a safe that you have in a home, or if you don’t have a home, maybe a safety deposit box would be a better option.

One note with the safety despot box, you want to make sure there is at least one other person on that box with you. Whether your spouse or a close trusted family friend. The reason being, is if there was something that would happen to you, you want to make sure there are as few limits and limitations for someone else to get into that box in the event of an emergency. 

Inform Parties

The next step we need to take is to inform folks that are in our documents. While you have likely had conversations with these people who need to act as guardians or powers of attorney, as an executor or trustees, it is important that we have a conversation with each of these people so they know exactly what they are expected to do in the event of an emergency. 

Backup

The final step is to backup, backup, backup.

We want to make sure that these documents that you’ve spent both time and money completing, are safe and readily accessible where they need to be for each of us. For example scanning them in and storing them in a local or cloud based document management tool. If you are a client of FDS, we actually have many tools available to you for this process. 

So, now that we have the documents all figured out, what will we start doing with them?

It’s quite likely once you’ve completed your documents, you were provided an instruction sheet. We recommend that you follow that instruction sheet very closely.  It gives you instructions on how to update the beneficiaries for any accounts that may need to be done.  Like change any account titling – as that could be a very important step, or even adjusting the deed to your home into a trust that may have been created for you. 

If you have any questions or are unsure what steps to take next, reach out, let us know. We’d love to celebrate with you to let you know that your documents are done.   And also help you the best way we can with what exactly needs to be done next.