Boring!

Estate planning sucks!

Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

I don’t have the big runway I once had when I wrote weeks in advance. Instead I’m writing this just days before I drive down to Austin, Texas for a conference. When you read this, I’ll be on the freeway somewhere en route. Probably about halfway by then.

Before I left town, I was trying to come up with a good topic and I realized the one lingering with me is the one worth writing about. It’s one of those things you just don’t shake all that easily and it’s what’s on my mind.

I had a meeting yesterday with a probate attorney and I’m still thinking about how best to describe it. It wasn’t fun.

I did some estate planning when I was living in Washington state, but here in Missouri, the laws are different and I have to revisit the whole thing and basically start over so it holds up locally. My biggest concern is my dog. I want his perfect life to continue.

I’m interviewing three different law firms and we’re in that phase where I am prequalifying myself with each attorney and going over my assets, layer by layer. The first challenge, and it’s a real one, is getting them to take me seriously. I get the feeling that the things I’ve said I’ve done, they don’t actually believe I’ve done. I see the pens go down as they decide I’m bullshitting my way through the meeting, as if I have nothing better to do. I fight the urge to just walk out the door.

That part is the most exhausting for me. They, of course, also want to make sure I’m of sound mind in all this. There are so many jokes there, but I don’t dare.

Despite my explaining my life’s work in great detail, I still see the skepticism. I do my best to ignore it and stay as matter-of-fact as I can, knowing what I’m up against. I keep reminding myself I could walk out, but I need to get this done, and walking out may make me feel better but would be a setback. I don’t want to tell my life story more than I have to.

Everyone should get this part of their life in order before they get to my age. Take the time and undergo periodic updates accordingly. There is a lot that goes into keeping assets private no matter what, and the whole process is very depressing even if you have nothing to preserve. You need to decide who gets to kick the plug out of the wall when it’s time for you to go. You have to think about your children, pets, beneficiaries. You have to decide things you’d rather not think about, even if you think it’s going to be an easy will. It’s not easy at all, nor is it cheap. It’s like a very depressing IRS audit except you die at the end.

Doing nothing creates a big mess to sort out and I wouldn’t do that to anyone. In Missouri, if you die without a will, the state decides who gets what through intestate succession, and the statutory formula almost never matches what you actually wanted. Probate here can drag on for a year or more, and all of it becomes public record. I also don’t want anyone picking through my life like I’m a Costco rotisserie chicken. It’s a long list of uncomfortable decisions like walking through a shitty menu at a restaurant you don’t even like. I left the law office just feeling down because for me, it’s the reality of life and it’s an experience that, if you’re not married, you undertake alone. The only guarantee is that someone will be pissed off when you die no matter what happens. There is almost no avoiding that.

I thought I’d be going through this process in good cheer like I just mowed the lawn or cleaned out that dresser drawer, but no. I left feeling far crappier than I went in and I have two more of these meetings to go. This is worse than a second or third opinion about cancer. It’s just not fun.

The thing is, I know what I want to do and it should be straightforward and simple. I’ve known for years. Yet, it sucks. It doesn’t suck because of anything personal in my life, it sucks because people fighting over estates is a real thing. They come out of the woodwork. That toothless cousin you haven’t seen since he ran his motorcycle into a tree suddenly shows up claiming a piece of the pie. That’s why good attorneys build in no-contest clauses, so anyone who challenges the will and loses forfeits whatever they were left. It changes the math on frivolous claims. I guess the reality is that I’m not doing this to clean things up and leave instructions. I’m doing this to protect my life’s work from those who had nothing to do with it.

What I am learning is, no matter what, get it done while you can so you’re not fueling a toothless distant cousin’s passion for strip clubs and blow.