Difficulties

I guess I’m just rather naive about things in this world. When my uncle, who had no children of his own, passed away, my second cousin and I were executors of his estate. My second cousin and his wife are attorneys, and things went so smoothly when the estate was settled. So I never gave settling Dad’s estate a second thought. Was I ever wrong. This has been a horrible experience.

I am finally down to the last five or so things to do. One of them is right here in town, and I have a relationship with the banker. That should go fine. One other bank is in San Antonio. When I became guardian, they were fairly easy to work with, so I’m not expecting them to give me a hard time. Another bank is in Delaware. That may be ok too. I believe all the banks will fall in line in a similar manner.

It is the stocks and bonds that I am really worried about. When V died, I was going to put myself as joint owner with the hopes that when Dad eventually died, the hard work would be done. They sent me a huge packet of paper work. Even my attorney didn’t understand all of the paper work. It was so complicated. So I handled it the easy way - I did nothing. I’m a great procrastinator, but now it’s time to deal with the whole thing!

One of the insurance companies is being rather difficult. It seems I never send them enough paper work. They always find something else they need - even some things that they already have. V’s death certificate is one of the things they have, but say they want another.

An annuity I thought I would be the beneficiary for actually is an annuity for me. I have to die to get it. That’s not much good. They did call today and offered help is getting that one straightened out. I told her I wasn’t to that point yet.
So I have sent off for four more official death certificates for V. I sent the one insurance company a copy and a certified letter with the date of her death, etc. from the state. I know that won’t be enough. So I’ll be paying for more death certificates. I even had to go back to 1972 to get an official death certificate for my mother. She was still listed as beneficiary on a policy so I thought I had better send the death certificate.

I surely would like to be preemptive about my death. I would love to make sure my heirs don’t have to go through all this. It is really difficult. Perhaps I should just make sure we spend it all so that there is nothing for the heirs to inherit! Then there wouldn’t be a problem at all.