(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
45 Degrees North: Getting Affairs in Order [1]
['Donna Kallner', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2025-03-28
I’m not much of a gambler, unless you count the occasional bar dice shake at a Wisconsin tavern or a lifetime of dodging deer on country roads. But I’m of an age now to see not having an up-to-date estate plan is a gamble I’m not willing to take.
My husband and I had plenty of excuses for putting off a long-overdue overhaul of documents we executed 30 years ago. Finally last fall we resolved to get our affairs in order. And much to our surprise, it wasn’t as overwhelming or expensive as we feared it would be.
According to the Trust & Will 2025 Estate Planning Report, 83% of Americans surveyed recognize the importance of estate planning but only 31% have a will. And where you live can be reflected in your estate plan (or lack thereof).
Suburban residents are the most prepared of those surveyed, with 35% having a will and only 51% lacking any estate planning documents. Rural communities lag behind in estate plan adoption, particularly regarding trusts. While 13% of urban and suburban residents surveyed reported having trusts, only eight percent of rural respondents did. I would bet that many of those trusts involved agricultural lands.
But like many rural people, Bill and I don’t have farmland to pass down. By the time end-of-life care expenses eat away at our assets, our “estate” isn’t likely to amount to much. We don’t have children. Relatives live far away. We don’t want to be a burden to anyone. We’ve seen friends struggle when a loved one died intestate – that is, without leaving a will. We prefer to have those we love remember us fondly instead of for the hassle we left behind.
I know from conversations with rural friends and neighbors that we are not alone in putting off estate planning. So here are some things we’ve learned from getting our affairs in order.
Small town lawyers. For some, there are good reasons to seek out a specialized estate planning attorney. We chose an attorney who lives and practices in our rural county. We figured we could save time (hers and ours) by working with someone who represents the interests of other people like us in an area where the population skews heavily toward older people of modest means.
We explained our goals and concerns. She explained our options. Then she helped us craft a simple plan to protect the surviving spouse after one of us dies or becomes incapacitated, and a plan for our estate to avoid probate if we should both die while we still have anything left. The total cost was less than we paid in 1996 for the estate plan we needed to replace.
Experience helps. Bill and I had an advantage this time that wasn’t the case in 1996: We’ve had experience from helping execute our late parents’ end-of-life wishes and are at least familiar with the vocabulary. We have played supporting roles in trusts, wills, and power of attorney (POA), and served as estate executors. We’re by no means experts, but those chapters of our lives taught us important lessons. We’ve also known people our age who, for various reasons, did not get those lessons and were paralyzed at the thought of getting their own affairs in order. So they put it off. Again and again.
The perfection trap. Making choices when “end of life” is an abstraction is hard enough. It doesn’t get easier when you’re facing a debilitating diagnosis, long drives to medical appointments, dramatic changes in how you must manage activities of daily living, or the sudden loss of a life partner. A big part of the reason it took us so long to get our affairs in order was that we couldn’t imagine who would be willing and able to take on or oversee things we had done for our aging parents.
The ask. Bill and I do not have children, and have no relatives who live nearby. We have beloved siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, and other relatives, but none have ties to the rural area where we have lived most of our adult lives. After all the miles we put on during our parents’s final years, we would never rule out moving somewhere more convenient for loved ones. But for financial and other reasons, we hope to stay where we are for as long as it makes sense.
So we asked people we love who don’t live here but have ties to the area if they would help us, and they said yes. Much of what they may need to do can be accomplished remotely. But we hope that their familiarity with the area will ease the anxiety that comes from wondering where things are and who to ask for help and recommendations.
Flexibility. In discussing our situation with the attorney, we came to the conclusion that we wanted our loved ones to have a great deal of flexibility. It’s hard to predict exactly what our circumstances will be when the time comes that we can’t make decisions on our own. It’s equally hard to predict what circumstances our financial POA and executor might face when our own situation gets messy. So we want them to use their best judgment at the time with the resources available. That is reflected in our will and financial power of attorney documents.
Specificity. We went another direction on our Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care documents. We were blessed to have some specificity from our own parents about what their end-of-life choices would be. We want our loved ones to be able to convey our choices to both medical providers and to other loved ones. My durable power of attorney for health care specifically names who I choose to make those judgments for me if I can’t make them myself and Bill can’t make them on my behalf.
Advanced Directives. The only part of our estate plans we had updated in 30 years were our advanced directives – written legal instructions to medical providers stating our preferences for medical care if we were unable to make our own decisions. Many rural hospitals can help people with those documents, which in Wisconsin require witnesses but don’t have to be notarized. It’s a good first step toward getting affairs in order.
Surprises. Because of a discussion with our attorney, we realized our real estate was in Bill’s name alone. If he had predeceased me, I would have inherited it under the terms of the old will. But probate could have delayed my ability to sell the property if that was necessary to finance a move. So a quit claim deed was executed to create survivorship marital property in both our names. That was recorded with our county’s register of deeds. That was an important prerequisite to another choice we made.
Avoiding probate. After clearing up that detail we could, as joint owners, designate a “TOD beneficiary”. A Transfer On Death Deed (TOD) is separate from a will. It specifies who inherits property covered by the deed in a manner that should avoid the probate court process. It takes effect only when both of us are gone. Until then, full rights to the property remain with us or with the surviving spouse. We don’t expect that any of the individuals named as Joint Tenants on the TOD would choose to keep this property as a primary residence. The TOD should expedite the process of selling the property so they can settle claims against the estate and disburse whatever is left over. This document was also recorded with our county’s register of deeds.
Every situation is different, so a TOD isn’t the right choice for everyone. Legal, tax, and other considerations, both for a grantor and a beneficiary, should be discussed with knowledgeable advisors.
Financial institutions. We went directly from our attorney’s office to the credit union to sign beneficiary designation documents. Power Of Attorney expires on death, and our accounts would immediately become part of our estate. If we should both perish unexpectedly, our executor would incur certain expenses in order to settle the estate. So we added a Payable On Death beneficiary to accounts we hold jointly. There may be some delay while awaiting death certificates (which, of course, you have to pay to get). But we do not want out-of-pocket expenses to add up before providing the means with which to pay expenses, including if our executor hires someone local to get our final reckoning done.
The list. There are still tasks we need to complete to have our affairs in better order. For example, Bill and I have made advanced designations of each other as Representative Payee for Social Security benefits. We want to add an alternate as well. We need to compile an up-to-date list of our accounts and where they’re located, and add alternate beneficiaries to life insurance policies. We need to prepay for funeral expenses, but the very real possibility that someday we might have to move closer to loved ones makes us reluctant to do that at the local funeral home until we do more research. So there’s more to be done.
But we’ve made progress. And if we can do it, maybe it will seem a bit less daunting to others like us.
Donna Kallner writes from Langlade County in rural northern Wisconsin.
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://dailyyonder.com/45-degrees-north-getting-affairs-in-order/2025/03/28/
Published and (C) by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailyyonder/
