Two days of actual sunshine in Massachusetts has put me in the mind of spring cleaning and my friend Jonathan’s ritual of throwing away “twenty-five” things from his closet as a paean to letting go of old “stuff.” I’m sure he quickly added as much back from one shopping spree but at least it was an attempt to clean out his closets and begin anew!
Like Jonathan we should all take a look at our “closets” and see what we can discard. I don’t mean just clothes, I mean taking stock of the “stuff” we have, keeping in mind that someone will have to deal with it when we die. Yes, I know, you’ve written a will or trust, have a Health Care proxy and Durable Power of Attorney, appointed responsible relatives or friends as agents but there is more to putting your affairs in order than the legal documents. And even if it is your kids who are dealing with the myriad of things tucked away in your closets, they are frequently strangers to your daily life.
Not too long ago I was appointed Personal Representative of an estate for someone I didn’t know. The decedent had no living relatives or available friends to take on the job. In order to file the appropriate paperwork with the court I literally had to clean out his closets, the kitchen (including the refrigerator), the basement, go through all his hard files (boxes and boxes of them) and catalogue all his valuable and not so valuable belongings.
While people may be quite explicit about the money, art and jewelry, it is surprising how much we hang onto. Having worked on that estate, I started to look around my home to see what a “stranger” might have to do to deal with my estate should my partner predecease me. It was pretty grim. My partner and I frequently joke about the corner file cabinet in my study; she is convinced her daughter will take care of it for us, but I’m not so sure she is going to want to plow through decades of manila folders with letters, articles, and old bills let alone forage through the shed with its extra furniture, carpets, decorations and dishes, including the dog dish and carrying case for our puppy who died twenty years ago!
When we represent a client doing an estate plan, there is an extensive form which is intended to cover all the usual financial bases such as your bank and stock accounts, names and addresses of financial helpers such as your accountant, financial advisor, your heirs, etc. However, there are some areas where more is needed by the Personal Representative charged with managing your estate. Here are a few areas you might focus on while you are alive and well:
- Email and social media accounts: Make a list, including passwords unless you have a password app that keeps all these. Is the password to the password app available somewhere for the survivor people to find? I was surprised to find an email account that I had years ago and never use now. Yikes! Time to delete it.
- Telephones and computers: Does your computer have a password? How about your phone? Who is the account holder? Or is it joint? Internet and telephone provider? Again, make a list including passwords or “legacy contacts” within the provider’s system. I have one for my iPhone, discovered when I got a new phone. (Yes, I’m a bit slow on the tech side of things.) It can take ages to undo joint accounts not to mention waiting on hold or repeatedly sending in copies of documents that would enable me to speak with someone. What’s on your computer? Are there things way too private or things you don’t care about? Yes, you may have given someone power of attorney to access your digital assets but what are they? And where are they?
- Books: It is surprisingly difficult to get rid of books, unless they are first editions in good shape and of some literary value. Once upon a time you could donate or sell your collection to used book stores easily. Now, not so much. I’ve noticed a number of high schools will take used books for their annual book sale to raise money. Your neighborhood or community may also have a “little free library,” where you can drop off a handful of books at a time to be taken and enjoyed by members of your community. Instead of waiting, maybe do it now? Are you really going to reread something on your bookshelf that you read in college and currently can’t remember the plot? This and other tasks can be broken up into smaller, more manageable activities. Disposing of your entire library may be a daunting idea, but picking out four or five books at a time to pass on to a friend or otherwise donate can be a slow, steady, and low-stress way to work towards decluttering your home. I love to cook and I have a collection of cookbooks and recipes collected over the decades. I rarely open them now, pretty much using the same ones I’ve memorized and besides, it is much easier to look up something on the internet if I want to try something new. Ask relatives or friends if they want a cookbook to fill out their shelves; if not time to let them go.
- Jewelry: This is another sensitive area frequently the cause of hard feelings if “split” among relatives or friends without specificity of your intentions. Part of your estate planning usually includes the opportunity to leave a tangible personal property memorandum indicating to whom you wish items of personal property be given. If you haven’t done that yet, then write that memorandum so it is kept with your will. Another alternative is to ask loved ones (relatives or friends) if they want a particular piece of jewelry, you wear all the time. Truth be told, I find myself wearing less and less “real” jewelry as time goes by and thus have decided to take a picture of my “loot” (which includes some of my mother’s jewelry) and show it to my nieces and nephews to see if they might want it NOW. If not, I’ll take it to a jeweler to check on selling it.
- Household furnishings: My friend Maria inherited a number of beautiful pieces of furniture from her mother. For years she always talked about wanting something more modern but insisted she was keeping the “stuff” for her children. Turns out, once she asked them specifically about the items, they responded with emphatic no’s. Finally, she donated and sold as much as she could, relieving herself of the burden of keeping things to pass on. Additionally, unless something is a bona-fide antique, furniture is hard to sell and will usually end up at a second-hand store or at a yard sale. Someone will therefore have to hold that yard sale or cart it to a second-hand store making your children wish you had gotten rid of the dozen extra serving platters. Sometimes you can donate furniture in good condition to a charity that assists newly arrived less well-off people. Maybe now is a good time to check that out.
- Pictures and Memorabilia: Many of us now keep our photos on our phone or computers. Some of us still have paper photo albums, individual photographs, and other collections of old certificates and ephemera. That rainy Sunday with nothing to do but complain about the weather, may be a good time to go through your photos and memorabilia. I’m not suggesting they all be thrown away, but take a look to see what is really important to save and put them in some sort of order. That estate I mentioned earlier – I ended up throwing away several boxes of photos. The beneficiaries didn’t want them and I had no idea what was important. The personal property appraiser didn’t even put a price on them and wouldn’t take them. It was painful to dump them as I suspect there were many beautiful memories within those images. Help your survivors out by discarding some of the memories or putting them in context. They could be useful for a memorial or for some historian of a particular period/event. If not, pare them down to the truly significant ones.
- General Files, Kept Records, and Sensitive Documents: Is it worthwhile to ease the survivors’ burden by consolidating or condensing your records now? Often these documents can be repetitive. While it may be dull, spending one of those rainy Sundays checking for redundant information can be a quick way to determine what needs to be kept and what can be disposed of. Going through the “corner file cabinet” and paring down unneeded documents can save your survivors time and energy during what is often an emotionally and mentally draining period. For documents that contain sensitive or confidential information, a personal shredder can be inexpensive and well worth its cost depending on the volume of sensitive paperwork in your possession. Your community may also have free shredding days hosted by local businesses or institutions like AARP. FedEx, Staples, and similar businesses offer shredding services at reasonable rates ($1.00/Lb.) or free depending on coupon availability. Alternatively, if you have an outdoor fireplace or pit you use during the summer months, using unneeded sensitive documents as kindling can be a great way to kill two birds with one stone, just make sure that your documents have been fully consumed by the fire and that no fragments remain.
We’ve all heard of Marie Kondo and the idea of decluttering our houses. A precursor to Kondo is a Swedish woman, Margarita Magnuson, who wrote a book published in 2018 called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. While it might feel morbid to consider what to do with our “stuff,” Magnuson has some good advice: “The only thing we know for sure is that one day we will die. But before that, we can do anything.” It is a book well worth reading especially as we age and try to take stock of our lives.
We can help.
As always, if we can provide assistance related to your estate planning – including what information to organize for a Personal Representative – please reach out to Kelli Clancy, Director of Operations, to schedule a consult: by phone at (617) 716-0300 or send us a message to schedule a consult.
© Katherine Triantafillou 2024