Idaho Law Blog
A Personal Representative is an individual selected by you and identified in your Last Will and Testament. The role of a Personal Representative is to administer your estate and distribute your assets according to your wishes upon your death. It sounds easy, but often it is not.
When you pass, the first step for you Personal Representative is to get appointed by the Court. Once appointed your Personal Representative has, what is often, the difficult task of identifying and locating all of your assets. This includes bank accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, life insurance, real property, burial plots, vehicles, personal property and all other asset that you may have owned during your life. Identifying your assets often require the Personal Representative to search extensively through documents located at your house and to go through mail that is still being sent to your address. However, sometimes this is not enough to lead the Personal Representative to your assets. In today’s technological age, many people access their accounts online, eliminating the need for paper documents to be sent directly to their houses. This creates a problem for a Personal Representative as he or she may not become aware of certain assets that you may have had before your death.
Organizing and creating a list of your assets can be very beneficial to your Personal Representative. Nobody knows what assets you own better then yourself. By putting together a list of your assets with usernames and passwords when applicable, you will save your Personal Representative hours worth of time and effort that would otherwise be spent on searching for those assets. Once you have created a list of your assets, it is important to store them in a safe place and let your named Personal Representative or other individual that you trust know how to gain access to your list.
For more information regarding this topic or other estate planning topics, please contact the offices of Racine Olson.
Matthew P. Stucki is an attorney in the law firm Racine Olson. .