What About Your Digital Assets And Digital Estate? Here Are Five Suggestions
A growing number of individuals and businesses are accumulating sizable digital estates. Participation in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, your own Blogs and Websites, even email all create digital property that is expanding dramatically every year. What happens to those assets and information after you are gone?
Unfortunately, if you don’t take the appropriate measures to secure these assets or make them easily transferable to your heirs, it can be a long and involved process to get them properly handled after you are gone. So what are you supposed to do?
Five Suggestions To Consider:
Digital Executor: First, along with your financial estate plans, you need to appoint a “digital executor’ to carry out your wishes related to this rapidly growing area of technology. This person should be someone who is very comfortable with online activity and new technology as a whole. They may or may not be the same choice as you have selected for your financial executor, but it is a good idea to make sure that if they are different individuals, they have a reasonably good working relationship.
Online Inventory: Second, you should take an inventory of all your digital or internet related accounts. This should include the account name (eg, Facebook, YouTube, website, email etc.), account number if applicable, user ID, password and the specific URL for logging in. I recommend keeping a digital copy on an encrypted flash drive as well a printed copy kept in a safe deposit box or other secure location.
Why You Should Not Put Property In Your Child’s Name As Part Of An Estate Plan
A good portion of parents with children eventually want to pass on the property they own to their children. Some might think that it is a good idea to put their real estate, home, property, or land in the name of their children while they are still alive. This type of estate plan can be easy to set up and can most likely be done without a lawyer, but it is full of dangers and risks that can pop up and bite you if you are not careful.
Titling your property with a child jointly or what is called in most states joint tenants with right of survivor-ship is an easy way to pass on property to that child. When you die, the property automatically passes to that child without having to go through the probate process. The title must simply be changed from joint ownership to that child’s name after you die and the title will then be in that child’s name. There are numerous reasons why doing this could be a bad idea though. One of the most common reasons that joint ownership with a child may be dangerous is that the child has an ownership interest in the property before you die and this interest could be subject to divorce proceedings, the IRS, or other creditors that your child may have. Your ex son or daughter in law or your child’s creditor can assert their interest in your property while you are still alive because the property is in your child’s name. Your child could be entitled to force you to sell your house if they feel that you are unable to care for yourself anymore and would be able to share the proceeds. Your child could also move their family in with you and become permanent guests.
Why Is Filing Bankruptcy Good For Corporations And Bad For Us?
In the past, filing bankruptcy always carried a stigma associated with failure. While many individuals believe people who file for bankruptcy are losers, when a multimillion dollar corporation does it they come out winners and believe it’s a great idea. It’s interesting how it’s perceived differently for some. When a CEO of a big corporation wants to downsize or eliminate a union contract, they will enter a bankruptcy filing for re-organization. Typically, they will file a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, that will allow them to negotiate lower balances with their vendors and even eliminate employee contracts that are saddling the company. Usually they will leave a bankruptcy filing being leaner and meaner than before.
On the other hand, when the average Joe decides filing bankruptcy is his way out of debt, he will have to make sure that he uses a bankruptcy attorney that is familiar with this type of case to protect as much property as possible through the bankruptcy exemption laws. In the case of a personal bankruptcy, if average Joe leaves anything unprotected there is a possibility that the bankruptcy trustee can take it to disperse it to the creditors. After Joe gets his bankruptcy discharge, he will have trouble getting credit for a couple years as he has to regain the trust of the creditors he filed bankruptcy on.