Fairport Women

Rebuilding Home: How the State of Illinois Unintentionally Became My Estate Planner

By Deborah Feldman

My husband, Don, was 33 when he unexpectedly passed away. Up until the day of his death, I always thought that we had a lot going for us: we were responsible people – had two children, owned a home, had IRA accounts, investment accounts, owned life insurance, were very involved in our community and were fortunate to live near our families. What we didn’t have was an estate plan – no wills, trusts or any legal documents. At our young ages and with two small children, the thought of death and the cost of an estate plan were not even remotely on our radar. I learned the hard way that it should have been!

I was always under the impression that whatever we accumulated during our marriage would automatically pass to me if something were to happen to Don. I quickly found out that this is not necessarily true. Without direction from a will or trust, or the ownership title of the asset, or a beneficiary designation, the state of domicile (in our case, Illinois) has intestate laws that govern the disposition of a decedent’s property. The result of Don not having a will or trust was that the state of Illinois became our unintentional estate planner.

What happened next was a whirlwind of document collection requests from everywhere. I had to produce proof of how our house was titled, who were the beneficiaries of our IRAs, who were the beneficiaries of the life insurance policy, how our cars were titled, who was on the mortgage, who was on the auto loan, how our investment accounts were titled, where was our marriage license, birth certificates, Social Security cards, tax returns and so on… This was problematic because our documents were all over the house and I really didn’t feel like looking for them or doing anything else.

It was a simply overwhelming process, but very necessary and enlightening. Up until Don’s death I had lived a life of false security – a life where I thought I had all the time in the world to get my affairs in order because, after all, I was only 31 years old and had decades of time left. Did I ever get that WRONG!!! Little did we realize that our procrastination in creating a legal estate plan could have produced a situation that we would have never chosen – had Don and I died simultaneously (e.g., in an auto accident or plane crash) the state of Illinois might have had some say in who would be our children’s guardian(s)! Ignorance was certainly bliss in our case! We would never have left this important decision to chance…

The realization that I was now the “last parent standing” made me become very concerned about my own mortality. My children’s futures were solely in my hands, and I remember thinking that I had to take good care of myself so that I would live long enough to see my youngest child, David, graduate from college. I had a new sense of urgency to get an estate plan in place and, needless to say, I couldn’t open the door to my attorney’s office fast enough – I had a will, living trust and health care powers created within weeks of Don’s death. 

Dealing with Don’s death was such a life altering, scary, depressing, horrible experience and at the same time motivating. Having to administer his estate (which required me to produce numerous documents located in several different places) prompted me to create a “Family Binder.” All of my important documents, as well as letters that I wrote to my children (and continued to update in the following years…) were placed in this binder. My immediate family members all know where the binder is in case of an emergency. 

Over the years I have refined and added to the binder, and it has given me great comfort knowing that my documents are all in one place. It also gives me a wonderful feeling each time I help one of my clients create one of these binders. I’ve always said that I got into the wealth advising business to help people and I’m grateful for every time that I’ve been able to use my life experience to make my family, friends, or clients’ lives better.

For more insight from Deb, you can read the previous issue of Rebuilding Home here, or stay up-to-date on new issues by following Deborah Feldman’s blog on LinkedIn.