Planning Your Estate Shouldn’t Be Like Pulling Weeds. Three Simple Tips
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Tyler Hoffman is the Founder of OnPoint Employee Benefits www.onpointbenefits. ca and the Executive Producer at www. deliberatewealth.com He lives in Mill Bay.
pring is becoming Summer. Changes are in the air. As the Rhodos come into bloom and the grass needs mowing every other day, it reminds me that I’ll eventually need care too down the road. I recently updated my Will, POA and Healthcare Directive to reflect my wishes and final commands. Interestingly, I’ve had a few family members reach out to me lately for me to be their Executor.
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While this is considered to be an honour, being an Executor is a time consuming and potential litigious favour to perform and can be very time-consuming. Being organised is key. I said yes, but it came with a caveat… they need to be organised! I’m going to share a few resources that I have no investment in nor receive anything back in any shape or form – my disclaimer. When I updated my Will I used the online firm Willfull.co out of Toronto. My Will is pretty straight forward and for estates that aren’t complicated, I feel you’ll be well served. I was able to update my POA and healthcare directive all at the same time. The prices are fair and the value of what they offer is a whiteglove service. I still have to take the executed documents to a local notary, but all three were created in 10 minutes. No more excuses for not having time to get this task done! For 15% off you can use the discount code ONPOINTWILL at checkout. Willful offers annual updates
and you can make changes as necessary without additional legal costs. Another tool I stumbled upon was ReadyWhen.ca This is a Vancouver based firm that has created a highly secure, digital estate planning tool. This tool will prevent me from running around trying to track down and locate statements, policies, identifications etc. At a time when other family members will be relying on me heavily to carry out the final wishes expeditiously and with care. ReadyWhen.ca is the perfect digital vault that can be shared with Advisors, Accountants and even other family members. My last find for you is Wealthica. ca This is a cool tool! Developed out of Montreal, Wealthica aggregates all financial and investment accounts allowing me (the named Executor) to see precisely where everything is at and with each institution when the Wealthica account is shared with me. Try it out, even for
yourself having a line of sight on everything in one glance is handy. Planning and even thinking about your estate might feel strange and even uncomfortable. Lots of steps, moving parts and thinking about the end of life when we are so full of life sometimes can cause this part of our finances to take a back seat. Being in the garden or on the trail with the dog is where I’d rather spend time, and these tools will help me and my family members stay in check while enjoying life.
