Archive for April 2011
Burial plots. In 1948 my father’s father bought a funeral plot with four grave spaces for $300. He put $90 as a down payment and paid the rest in $9 monthly installments. I know this because I found the original deed of sale in my mother’s papers. I subsequently had to reopen my father’s estate in order to transfer ownership of the plots to my sister and me.
Technically, it was one plot with four grave spaces. The spaces were for my grandmother and grandfather who are buried there and presumably their children, my father and his sister. When my grandfather purchased the plot, he didn’t take into account the fact that his children might marry, or decide on different burial arrangements. As it turns out, they did. Two of the grave spaces remain unused to this day.
The cemetery will not purchase them back and resell them – so it is up to the owners to sell the burial plots. And grave spaces can run in the thousands of dollars. I imagined it would be quite difficult and have been procrastinating this sale for several years. As it turns out, you can sell plots on ebay and craigslist as well as a number of aggregators who provide a market to buy and sell plots in multiple geographic areas. For example: Buyandsellcemeteryplots.com, plotexchange.com, plotbrokers.com and thecemeteryregistry.com to name a few. Some cemeteries even have facebook pages. Reselling plots is a virtual cottage industry. Who knew?
Selling a grave site can involve fees levied by the cemetery to legally transfer the deed of ownership. Additionally, the state of New Jersey requires a maintenance and preservation fee which can equal 15% of the purchase price. This is not to maintain the actual grave, but is for maintenance and preservation of the cemetery itself.
Tips: Ideally, you would know the burial arrangements for your parents and would have the proper documentation for any burial plots, vaults, mausoleums, etc. If you are in possession of plots that will not be used, contact the cemetery to see if they will purchase the plots, or at a minimum, what the going rate is for the plots. Additionally, you should find out what mandatory fees exist and what the legal process is for transferring title to the plots. You should also find out if the cemetery has any religious restrictions that would impact your sale.
Information found on this web site is for general informational purposes only based on personal experience and should not be construed as legal, tax or other professional advice. You should consult an experienced attorney , tax professional or financial advisor concerning your particular factual situation and any specific questions you may have.
Absentee Ballots. Elderly people vote. According to the US Census, people over 65 years old have a greater percentage of registered voters than any other age group and higher voting rates as well. My mother died two days before election day in 2006, after a several week stay in the hospital. One of our last projects together was trying to obtain an absentee ballot as she was keen on voting.
As your parents or loved ones get older, the easiest way for them to vote is through an absentee ballot. And the easiest way to get an absentee ballot is to plan ahead so that you are not racing against the clock and dealing with unnecessary bureaucracy.
Please note, once you are acting as executor, absentee ballots are totally irrelevant as the deceased can not vote. Except of course, in Chicago.
Tips: Encourage your elderly parents to apply for absentee ballots and assist them in obtaining them. If you know your parent is going into the hospital for an operation or treatment, think ahead and get the absentee ballot.
Information found on this web site is for general informational purposes only based on personal experience and should not be construed as legal, tax or other professional advice. You should consult an experienced attorney , tax professional or financial advisor concerning your particular factual situation and any specific questions you may have.
Hoarding. I can not get this article from the AARP magazine, The Hoarders Among Us, February 4, 2011 out of my mind. I remember hearing about the Collyer Brothers many years ago and being fascinated with their story. They died surrounded by 130 tons of waste they had accumulated. (Most people in my generation never heard of the Collyer Brothers as they died in the 1940’s.) As a complete neat freak, hoarding both intrigues and frightens me.
Luckily, I did not have to deal with hoarding with my parents. The only thing that came close was the incredible number of plastic bags that my mother seemed to have amassed. For some reason, she had a deeply held belief that you can never have too many. I am now an avid recycler of plastic bags and try to use my own reusable grocery bags whenever possible.
That said, the article points out that the hoarding tends to be more prevalent in older people and that it gets worse with age. If you are dealing with hoarders, the article suggests that therapy is useful and that it is a long and agonizing process to get hoarders to relinquish possessions, even useless ones.
Tip: Get a dumpster. Or two.
Information found on this web site is for general informational purposes only based on personal experience and should not be construed as legal, tax or other professional advice. You should consult an experienced attorney , tax professional or financial advisor concerning your particular factual situation and any specific questions you may have.
Photographs. My father was the photographer in our family. He had a camera at every family event. First it was a Brownie and then a Polaroid and eventually a Nikon with a zoom lens. He wasn’t focused on composition or artful photographs, he was chronicling the events. When he died, he left behind over 15 albums of Polaroids and 85 sleeves of 100 color slides each dating back to 1957. These photos and slides take up a lot of room and are currently occupying a closet in my house.
This is in stark contrast to the over 8000 digital photos I have of our daughter which are all housed on my computer and various back-up cd’s and portable disc drives, none of which would fill a bread box. I have long imagined that I would some day digitize my father’s photos. However, that would be a long and tedious process. There are services now that will do the scanning for you, but you still have to organize your photographs and it is quite costly if you have a huge volume of photos.
We do look at the pictures and thoroughly enjoy doing so. We recognize virtually everyone since they all family members and close friends. My father was meticulous about labeling the Polaroids so in the event we don’t know, we can look on the back and find out.
Tips: If you are taking the slides, don’t forget to take the slide projector. Store the photos in a cool, dry place to minimize further degradation. Enjoy the photos.
Information found on this web site is for general informational purposes only based on personal experience and should not be construed as legal, tax or other professional advice. You should consult an experienced attorney , tax professional or financial advisor concerning your particular factual situation and any specific questions you may have.
Death Certificates. When my mother died, the gentleman from the funeral parlor asked me how many death certificates I “wanted”. Actually, I thought, I didn’t “want” any. I quickly snapped out of contrarian-mode and asked what he recommended. He said, one for every bank account and 5 was usually sufficient. I got 10. It was not enough.
It is not only bank accounts, but brokerage accounts, insurance policies, credit cards and all sorts of unexpected institutions and corporations that require an original death certificate and letters testamentary, which proves you are the executor. This “prove it” mentality on the part of institutions quickly snapped me out of the denial stage of grieving.
Death certificates are issued by the state in which the person died. So, despite the fact that my mother lived in NJ, her death certificate was issued by NY since she died in a hospital there. Getting extras is always possible, but it is tedious and time consuming and can disrupt the flow if you are acting as executor.
Tips: Get 20. If you are running low, another option would be to include a self-addressed stamped envelope and ask the institutions that require it to return the original to you after they have verified the information.
Information found on this web site is for general informational purposes only based on personal experience and should not be construed as legal, tax or other professional advice. You should consult an experienced attorney , tax professional or financial advisor concerning your particular factual situation and any specific questions you may have.
Unclaimed funds. I never understood this. Why would any sane person who is not in a witness protection program not claim money that was rightfully theirs? It seems to me that “unclaimed” is just a euphemism for “we-forgot-to-tell-you-that-we-have-your-money-and-are-keeping-it-for-you.”
States require banks, insurance companies, utilities and many other companies to turn over inactive accounts. The state then serves as custodian for the funds until they are claimed.
Our estate lawyer suggested that I search the data bases of the states my parents lived in to see if there were any unclaimed funds. Searching for unclaimed funds is easy and it is free. The states publish the information and it is readily available online.
Sure enough, I found and recovered a couple hundred dollars that belonged to my father. The state data base had his full name and address. Again, I can’t figure out why they didn’t just send him the money or at least a notification while he was alive, but they didn’t.
There are multiple services online now that offer assistance, but they require your email and I assume, ultimately a fee to recover the money that they found for free. Recovering the found funds should not cost you anything either.
Tips: Checking for unclaimed funds is something you can do for your parents while they are alive. Be sure to check for alternate spellings and check in all states where they lived and might have had a bank account. In fact, this is so easy, you should do it for yourself while you are at it!
Information found on this web site is for general informational purposes only based on personal experience and should not be construed as legal, tax or other professional advice. You should consult an experienced attorney , tax professional or financial advisor concerning your particular factual situation and any specific questions you may have.
Clothes. I remember when I was growing up my mother would occasionally say to me, “You’re wearing that?” Her meaning was clear. She did not like the outfit ~ usually because she thought it did not flatter me. My mother had been a professional clothing buyer and had exquisite fashion sense.
She was very tall and in the 1960’s and 1970’s, most of the department stores and boutiques did not sell clothes in her size, so she learned to sew. She always said that she didn’t want to wear clothes that looked like they had been made by “loving hands at home,” so some of her early efforts were given away. Her first sewing project were mother/daughter dresses ~ identical dresses that she made for herself and me. My father did not like the way hers looked on her so she gave her dress to our housekeeper. I kept my dress. While I loved our housekeeper and was happy to be twins with her, I was a bit jealous when my mother kept the next dress which matched one that she made for my sister Jodie.
My mother became an extremely accomplished seamstress. However, as she got older, much to her delight, stores started stocking clothes in her size and the catalog business made all sizes available to everyone. My mother had so many clothes that when she moved into the independent living facility, she converted the bathtub to a full double-door closet bringing her total of double-door clothing closets to four.
Converting the tub to a closet was a clever way to utilize space that would otherwise go unused. My mother’s apartment had two showers and she was unable to get in and out of the tub, so a clothing closet was the perfect solution.
When each of my parents died, there was an enormous amount of clothing to get rid of. If there are family members who wear the same size, the task could be made easier by giving them the clothes they want. It is much easier with men, because blazers and button down shirts fit into most men’s wardrobes. I found with my mother’s clothes that even if I had worn the same size, which I did not, I would not have wanted the clothes as they were not sufficiently youthful or appropriate for my lifestyle. I could just hear my mother saying, “You’re wearing that?”
None-the-less, I felt that I wanted some clothes to remind me of my mother. I took a few shirts which I use for gardening, but the real treasure trove was in the accessories. Scarves, pocketbooks and gloves for women and ties for men. When we were kids, we would make beautiful costumes out of my mother’s scarves which smelled of her perfume so I was delighted to take as many scarves as I could. Oh, and I took the built-in Singer sewing machine/desk. This despite the fact that I seriously don’t have the foggiest notion of how to use it.
We donated the bulk of both my mother and father’s clothing to charity. There was a sufficient amount of clothing so that we were able to have it picked up in both instances.
Tips: Call around to see what charities will pick up wardrobes. Be sure to have an inventory if you are planning on taking a tax deduction for the donation.
Information found on this web site is for general informational purposes only based on personal experience and should not be construed as legal, tax or other professional advice. You should consult an experienced attorney , tax professional or financial advisor concerning your particular factual situation and any specific questions you may have.
Julie Rothhouse
The Executor Advisor 