“Mishandled, estate and/or trust administration can cause family rifts; on the other hand, competent and careful management helps keep family memories happy and purpose-intact,” Margaret A. Munro and Kathryn A Murphy explain in Estate and Trust Administration for Dummies.
One common area of estate planning particularly vulnerable to misunderstandings are tangible assets such as artwork and antiques, things, as Nafeeshah Allen describes them in the Investopedia Retirement Guide, “can’t easily be split down the middle”. As our own Geyer Law estate planning attorney Cara Chittenden expressed in last week’s blog, it’s a good idea to bring together family members of different generations to share information about specific assets.
Tangibles in an estate might include:
- furniture
- jewelry
- fur coats
- cars
- boats
- collectibles
- art works
- antiques
Appraisals are often needed to ascertain the estate value of tangible items for IRS accounting purposes, and Munro and Murphy stress the importance of seeking out experts specifically credentialed for the type of asset being appraised.
The sooner in the process family meetings happen to communicate elders’ intentions and the reasoning behind their decisions about “stuff”, the more rewarding the process can be for both older and younger family members. One interesting aspect of people’s relationship with tangible possessions is explored in the book The Things We Love, by Aaron Ahuvia, PhD. While loving a “thing” is a one-way street, Ahuvia remarks, that attachment can be powerful, which is precisely why it’s important to share those feelings as part of the estate planning process.
From a very practical standpoint, the market value of collectible items is volatile and subjective, not to mention the costs of packaging, insuring, and shipping items to a beneficiary. What’s more, if the goal is to have several beneficiaries receive “equal value” from an estate, it becomes all the more important to clarify the preferences ahead of time.
Arranging one’s estate affairs ahead of time really does help ” keep purpose intact”!.
– by Ronnie of the Rebecca W. Geyer & Associates blog team
