Estate Planning 101: Four Tips for Maintaining, Organizing & Storing Your Estate Plan

April 6, 2016 Posted In Estate Planning
by Colorado Estate Matters

Four Tips for Maintaining, Organizing & Storing Your Estate Plan

Having a comprehensive estate plan is important to protecting your family and legacy. Once you have developed an estate plan keeping certain documents and staying organized can be essential to preserving your wishes for the future and to preventing your loved ones from experiencing unnecessary stress when it’s time to carry out your plans.

To that end, the following are some tips for how to maintain, organize and manage your estate planning documents once you have developed a plan:

1. Keep all of your estate planning documents in one location – These documents can include (but may not be limited to) funeral & burial plans, the will, trust documents, powers of attorney, financial & ownership documents, etc. What can also be helpful is creating a “master” list that details each of the documents that comprises your estate plan (so that anyone who may be looking for the plan in the future is aware of the each of the documents you have developed as part of the plan).
2. Make copies – In other words, create some redundancy in case the originals get misplaced, damaged or destroyed somehow. While you can create physical copies of your estate plan, it can also be beneficial to have the duplicates be electronic files. Regardless of the nature of the copies you make, it is best to keep these copies in a location that is different from the originals, with some possibilities being to retain them in a safety deposit box, at an attorney’s office, etc.
3. Tell your loved ones where you are storing your estate plan – This is a really important and often overlooked step, as discussing death can be very sensitive for some. Nevertheless, informing your loved ones that you have an estate plan and letting them know where you are keeping that plan can help them avoid unnecessary stress, frustration, etc. in the future if or when it is time to look for your plan.
4. Maintain a plan for regularly reviewing & updating your estate plan – Once you have made a plan for organizing and storing your estate plan (and once you have shared that plan with your loved ones), the last thing to do in order to preserve your wishes for the future is to commit to regularly reviewing your estate plan so you can revise/update it as needed. The fact is that, over the years, life, relationships and the nature of an estate can change; by reviewing and updating your estate plan as these changes occur, you can make sure your wishes for your estate, family and legacy are always up to date.

Contact a Denver Estate Planning Attorney today at Colorado Estate Matters, Ltd.

For experienced help developing, revising or administering an estate plan, you can turn to our Denver estate planning attorneys from Colorado Estate Matters, Ltd. We provide a thoughtful, comprehensive approach to our clients’ estate planning, elder law and other legal needs, and we take pride in helping each of our clients and their families find the best solutions for them.

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We can discuss your estate planning needs and different options during our consultation. To schedule this meeting, call us at (303) 713-9147 or email us using the contact form at the top of this page.

From our offices in Denver, we serve clients throughout the southwest and southeast Metro Area, including (but not limited to) people in Highlands Ranch, Littleton, Castle Rock, Parker, Aurora, Greenwood Village, Englewood, Centennial, Wheat Ridge, Golden and Arvada.