Revising Your Estate Plan After a Natural Disaster

Only the most conscientious people start working on their estate plans just because they realize that they are far enough into adulthood that their lack of estate planning will cause emotional and financial stress for the people they love.  Everyone else procrastinates estate planning until something happens.  That something could be a health scare, a financial crisis, or the death of a family member.  In Florida, the chances that the “something happens” that serves as a motivation to build or revise one’s estate plan will be a hurricane are only getting bigger; two major hurricanes hit Florida back-to-back this year, and it seems like Florida has been in the path of at least one hurricane per year for as long as anyone can remember.  Your experiences with hurricane devastation in Florida might not change your mind about who the beneficiaries of your will should be, unless they have convinced you to leave some or your estate as a charitable donation to an environmental conservation organization, but it may serve as a wake-up call about taking access to electricity, money, and the Internet for granted.  A Dade City estate planning lawyer can help you revise your estate plan so that you are better prepared for the next hurricane emergency.

Making Access to Your Estate Planning Documents Disaster Proof

The personal representative should bring an original of your will to the probate court.  Therefore, you should keep the original will in a place where the personal representative can find it.  This means, it should be somewhere that it is not vulnerable to getting destroyed in a hurricane-related flood.  If it is in your house, it should be in a safe or metal box that is not on the floor; a metal box on a shelf in your closet or the middle or top drawer of a metal filing cabinet is safer than a drawer in a wooden dresser on the floor.  Even better, keep it at your lawyer’s office.

These days, everyone needs a digital estate plan.  You should also compose a document with the passwords to your online accounts and your instructions about what you want your heirs to do with them, and you should keep it in a safe place.  Keep in mind that the personal representative should still be able to find your digital estate plan if your devices get destroyed in a hurricane.

Contact a Florida Estate Planning Attorney About Estate Planning

A probate attorney can help you hurricane proof your estate plan.  Contact The Law Office of Laurie R. Chane in Dade City, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

legalzoom.com/articles/how-natural-disasters-stress-the-need-for-estate-planning