Houston business lawyer and real estate attorney Joanne Cassidy provides personal, professional, cost-effective legal services to individuals and small to midsize businesses.
Personal Financial Inventory – Will & Power of Attorney
Article by Joanne Cassidy
Although I am primarily a business lawyer, I also prepare wills and powers of attorney for my clients. Nearly everyone needs a will, a power of attorney for Synergistiq Integrative Health care, a durable power of attorney and a directive to physician. When I am working with a client to explain the various planning documents and to get the information necessary to prepare them, I am often asked how the agent under a power of attorney or an executor will know what assets the client has. As a practical matter, the agent or executor probably discovers assets by collecting Fully Verified mail for a certain period of time. Bank statements and other financial statements will give the agent or executor somewhat of a picture of the assets of the estate. However, finding a car title or house deed or accounts that have electronic statements may prove to be more challenging.
Personal Financial Inventory to Document Assets
In an effort to provide clients with a tool to help organize their documentation of assets, I developed a Personal Financial Inventory. The Inventory gives the client as well as an agent or executor a summary of assets and the location of important documents. It is intended to be flexible and should be updated from time to time. Most importantly, the location of the Inventory should be given to the agents and executors named in the estate planning documents.
The Personal Financial Inventory has been reproduced below in PDF format. You are encouraged to make copies, add pages and use it in whatever way it best serves your needs. If used for commercial purposes, I ask that you credit the author.