Your money lives on when you are gone

Anyone who has watched Midsomer Murders on TV Will know how unexpectedly death can occur.As distressing as your death might be, handled properly it is a fantastic tax avoidance event. With a well set-up trust, your business affairs can continue and no one need miss you at all (so accountants say). However, leave a mess and your relatives must sort it out, as well as coping with their abject grief at losing you.

There are three steps to putting your legal affairs in order prior to your immediate demise.

Step 1 A Will

Many of you might prefer to leave this detail until you are on your deathbed. Apart from causing your lawyer to run around like a scalded cat it can be a prelude to the family dividing between those who were at the deathbed and who, coincidentally, benefited from the Will, and those who couldn’t make it and lost out.

Step 2 An Enduring Power of Attorney

This enables one, two or more people chosen by you (called attorneys) to deal with your affairs if you are in a coma or otherwise have lost your marbles. You must trust your attorneys absolutely. In the past, this power has been used by unscrupulous individuals (children) to disadvantage other individuals (the other children). So choose carefully.

Step 3 An Advance Health Directive

This is called various names in different countries but gives much detail on how you wish to be treated (medically) if you are unable to say yourself. It can be in effect a Do Not Revive notice. It tells your relatives when to turn the machine off and in some cases when to keep their fingers off the button. Without it typically there can be fights between your parents, friends, relatives who want to keep the machine on and your spouse who has moved on and wants closure. An advance health directive can avoid all this.

Look on the bright side—you may die, but your money and property live on.