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Perhaps a dark thought.
Not that I'm a worrier or anything as far as I am concerned I'm invincible. But i have a nagging doubt in my mind that if i was to kick the bucket (falling off a bike etc also included). I have no idea what world of hassle I'd be leaving behind for my unmarried other half.
Mortgage predates meeting her and is in my name fully. I'd hate for her to lose a roof over her head because i didn't get round to ticking a box/filling a form.
Anything else I should think about?
Whats the general stuff i should do/thinkabout?
Access to bank accounts, life insurance, will, scheduled script to clear browsing history
Do you have a will? That's critical of you are unmarried, even if she was on the mortgage she wouldn't necessarily get your share of you kicked it.
Will Or quick Marriage 🙂
Car registered keeper. (Whatever that means 🙂
Funeral plan, power of attorney (health and financial), joint accounts are an easy way to allow access to funds, will, possibly life insurance.
See https://mydecisions.org.uk/.
I was thinking this the other day.
I'm sure there are apps mentioned here previously that can securely hold all your passwords. she would be locked out of my phone, my half of the laptop, all the bank accounts and car insurances etc. Even knowing who our car insurance is with as its all electronic and just an email squirrelled away in a folder where I know where it is but I doubt she would find.
And that's before you get to the really big stuff.
It is best to avoid these issues by eschewing all human contact and living alone in a hut on common land up a hill.
Alternatively, get a will! There is someone on the stickied skills exchange thread who does them.
Password protected spreadsheet for both of us with details of work contacts, NI numbers, email addresses and passwords, bank accounts and credit cards with passwords and PINs, same for savings accounts, PayPal, pensions, wills, solicitors, executors, home and car insurance details, gas, electricity, water, TV licence, phone and broadband.
Also Facebook and STW log ins 😄
16 and 13 year olds know where it and what the password is. The current situation focused our minds a bit.
LastPass family has a nice feature where you can link your accounts such that they are normally private but you can request access to the other one. If the other person doesn't grant or deny access within a certain amount of time then it is automatically granted.
Civil partnership? Doesn't have to be a big wedding, don't need to tell anyone, but it does save a ton of legal issues if one of you dies. That's what it's there for, to legally state yours and her wishes regarding being seen as a legally linked entity.
Password protected spreadsheet for both of us with details of work contacts, NI numbers, email addresses and passwords, bank accounts and credit cards with passwords and PINs, same for savings accounts, PayPal, pensions, wills, solicitors, executors, home and car insurance details, gas, electricity, water, TV licence, phone and broadband.
If you're leaving large sums of money to charity or people outside your immediate family you might wish to leave a second copy of your will with a friend, and tell the charities in question.
Don't leave that bag of scuddy mags at the back of the garage behind the unit for your partner to find.
We had reciprocal wills drawn up a few years back, just to make things simpler.
We each have all our financial stuff in a fire safe, so everything is in one place and vaguely secure. If you forgot the code, a local locksmith could open it in a few minutes.
My parents do the same and were burgled once, the scrotes carried the firesafe into the garden and tried to smash it open using garden spades / forks - barely scratched it. Dad should have really screwed it down to the floor / wall.
Based on the current outcome with my mum, we are looking at making official copies of everything, copies of photos etc and then getting a joint lock box in a bank in london. Too much chance of losing something precious and life is way too short.
got wills sorted and each of us know most details, good idea on the passwords though will look at that
My sister makes sure she updates everybody's pic every year at Christmas, when the mood is lighter and happier.
We discovered it is to make sure if the worse happens, there will be a good pic for the funeral program.
Are you getting the hint about a will yet?
A bloke I know was the executor for his best mate who died fairly suddenly and young, unmarried and wealthy but no will. He'd been living unmarried but like man and wife for years, and with no will his kids were set to inherit everything. For a while it genuinely looked like his partner was going to be made homeless and destitute. Don't know if it was shock or grief that made the offspring act that way or if they are genuine a-holes, but it was a proper mess at the time, got sorted in the end.
Trades unions legal teams will do them, often free for members or some charities do them for a donation. Something you can be organising while you're off.
Plus if you live in Cornwall and die without a will then bonnie Prince charlie gets the lot
I had open heart surgery 16 months ago and made a will at the time just in case. I didn't think about power of attorney at the time but I suppose with mountain biking and just general accidents there's always the small possibility of becoming mentally incapacitated all of a sudden. Perhaps I'll sort that out now rather than later.
I have a Will in place, I have a very easy family set up so that is quite straight forward.
I also have a spread sheet listing every account, credit card, insurance policy. Everything with a direct debit, standing order or any sort of account is listed. It includes account decription (what it is), account number and contact details. My wife, and sister have a copy of this and I update it every few months or as stuff changes. My Dad also does the same and gives me a copy.
If I snuff it, I want things to be as easy as possible for those left behind.
Plus if you live in Cornwall and die without a will then bonnie Prince charlie gets the lot
Also the queen Lancashire, and while I believe she (her estate) doesn't contest anything if relatives are found or come forward, she still makes a tidy packet from it.
our financial stuff in a fire safe
Is it waterproof too?
So I'm not the only one then!
I've been mostly focusing on pensions this week. They're madness really. I heard lots of people talking about retirement in terms of pounds and pence, but really it seems better to measure it in months and years.
It's funny how 'life gets in the way' when I started work in a Bank in 2001 (at 23) I was given a roadmap for life. Stick with the Bank, play your cards right and you'll retire the day of your 55th birthday with your home paid for, a pile of bank shares with £200k and a pension that would rival most peoples working salary. I don't think anyone could get that now, I manged to catch the tail end of the golden Boomer Gen final salary pension on top of a golden Boomer Gen 'package'. Anyway, 2008 happened and I left.
I admit I didn't pay into a pension after that until Auto Enrolment happened, even starting that in my (late) 30s and with my Bank pension on top, retiring at 55 is unthinkable, it's just not going to happen, nor is 60, frankly I'm going to do something more than just 5% auto enrolment to retire at 65, realistically (taking a 25 year mortgage at 42 didn't help) I'll still be at it at 67, 2 months and 21 days (unless they change it again) when my Nest, Bank and State Pension combined with give me an income of merely £800 a month less then I have now, I take some heart from the fact the kids will be grown up by then, the house paid for and if she managed to put up with me for that long the Wife's NHS pension should be about the same.
I don't really have a plan at the moment, other than taking some heart I seem (in this instance, but in no other) to be in a better financial position than some of my friends who've never had a pension and some opted out of auto-enrolment.
As for life insurance, we were due to get some when we bought our house in December, but the Account Manager in the Bank was off ill, the IFA was useless and I didn't want to buy into it until I actually knew something about it, it seems it's one of those things you can't buy well now, so I'm holding off. The 'Death In Service' payment clause of my original pension is worth a decent pile, but not enough to let my Wife / Kids live easy for long.
I have so much life insurance that i'm afraid to climb a ladder while my wife is in the house.
The situation with my parents made me get this all sorted early last year: will drawn up, all my financial stuff is shared with my sister via a password protected Google Doc that she will only access when I go. Get a death in service payout too so that's all sorted. Even done my wishes for my funeral and who gets my bikes!
Took me about 3 hours in all to sort out over a week, then I realised how much I was worth dead 😁
will, just in case you ever split up in future. unfortunately though without a marriage or civil partnership she will unlikely be eligible to any pension funds, you can probably blame Jesus for that.
How might one go about getting a will witnessed? Don't want to ask my elderly neighbours currently. Do solicitors do this currently? What's their typical charge? Thanks