Do you have life-altering plans for the coming year? Are you renting your house out for the first time? Buying or selling, moving, deploying, taking a long trip, or perhaps a new baby is in your future?
If you have any of these life events headed your way this year, you will need to make some changes to your legal paperwork.
Paperwork that Needs Changed
- Wills
- Trusts
- POAs
- Specific POAs
- Budgets
- Banking and Investment Accounts
- Authorized Users on each of the above accounts
- Medical Power of Attorney
- Taxes
Have you made a plan to get these things ready for the new year?
Use the holidays, not only to celebrate with family and friends, but to get everything in order. This is a great time, when everyone is off, to sit down and discuss needed information. While it might already seem overwhelming, now over a glass of wine is SO much easier than waiting until things are blowing up.
Trust me on that one. We knew about a deployment 18 months in advance, but we were still found in the legal office the day before leaving — getting things signed. We were those people that were still getting most of the above documents done the day before instead of enjoying our last bits of time together free of stress.
Take my advice on that one — don’t wait until the last minute because these things don’t go away. They just fester and get worse. Crack open a bottle of something oaky and dry, grab your spouse, and knock out the boring paperwork ahead of time. You will thank yourself later.
Just because you are prepared doesn’t mean you still won’t have things thrown at you. No matter how prepared you are, something will always come up. Being prepared means that you will have more “tools” in your arsenal to attack the problem when it arrives.
Are there other forms of paperwork that may need changes? Share your ideas in the comments.
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