Making the First 100 Days of Your Legacy a Positive Experience
The first 100 days after a loved one has passed, even in a well-planned estate, are too often confusing times. These days seem to be directionless with foreboding of more delays and confusion to come.
Is this the best our profession can do?
What if the first 100 days of your legacy were clear, organized, scheduled, governed by checklists, and marked by accomplishments? After all, that’s what you wanted when you told us you hoped to leave a positive legacy. We talk about making the settlement of estates easy, but can we actually deliver? Your loss will be hard enough without making the process afterward miserable for your family.
Excuses
We have lots of excuses for inefficiency in the settlement of estates:
- There’s lots of data to organize and process
- We’re dealing with people, not numbers
- We have to cope with courts and government offices
- We’re waiting on financial institutions, each with their own customs to follow and forms to fill out
- Tax returns may not be due for months
- Trusts have to be set up
- Families lack leadership
- Attorneys are juggling a lot of cases
These problems have not gone unnoticed. In fact, for years people have come to expect estate settlements to be drawn out and tedious. The process of estate settlement seems to be stuck in a prior era, like crossing the ocean in the Santa Maria – a long, unpredictable journey, drifting with the currents, with many frustrating doldrums along the way.
We feel that this is just wrong thinking, and we have decided to do something about it. We may not be able to settle your estate in a week, but we can make the first days and weeks a lot easier than expected. This is when all of your planning will pay off. It is also when your team, especially your lawyers and trustees, need to be quick on their feet.
The first 100 days of your positive legacy should touch on all the aspects of the estate and trust settlement that need attention, and provide clear action items, time tables, and flat predictable fees. It is also a time where we can shine, and convert what would have been a 15th century voyage into a comparative trip on the Concorde.
In the first 100 days, meetings are set up that result in understanding the issues for the estate. This results in action items, the setting of a flat fee, frequent check-ins, and follow up.
Clockwork, right?
Well, as close as we can get to clockwork. We would be misleading you if we said everything can get done in 100 days. After all, estate taxes are due 9 months after death – but we can get a big start on them early. And there will be income tax returns for the estate and trusts for what’s likely to be the next 12 to 24 months, and sometimes longer. There are many new long-term issues to address, but we will have started work on all matters. Assignments of responsibility will be made, with our friendly team of take-charge folks leading the way.
Borchers Trust Law Group have been tackling the subject of creating a positive legacy experience for several years. There’s always room for improvement, but with a recent, concentrated effort, we are closer than ever to the reality of a positive legacy for you and your heirs.
A unique offering at our firm is a flat fee structure for settling an estate. With so many uncertainties after a death, we’ve found having a predictable flat fee is a comfort to those who’ve lost a loved one.
