Located inside a Streeter Law Group estate planning binder in a section labeled Trust Assets, are a couple of pages entitled the Personal Property Memorandum. For some, these pages remain blank, but for others they are of extreme use.
Why?
It’s only natural when deciding the particulars of your estate plan, to give first consideration to your home, and who you wish to inherit it. The next couple of considerations usually involve monies and automobiles. But it takes a while before you give any consideration to the cookie jar that looks like a rooster, or the clock that resembles a frying pan.
What are we talking about?
We are talking about those items whose value is more sentimental than financial.
We are talking about the cookie jar, clock on the wall, family bible, your father’s wedding band and your grandmother’s depression era china?
Maybe these are things you wish to leave to your spouse or children. Or maybe for argument sake, you want to leave the cookie jar to your niece who has admired it for years – the clock to your neighbor who really appreciates its humor – the family bible to your oldest son.
In any case the personal property memorandum can help.
But couldn’t you just list these items in your Will?
You absolutely could. However, if you wished to make any changes to your list, you would need to update your Will. Whereas with the personal property memorandum, you simply make certain the memorandum is signed, and referenced in your Will.
Yet, maybe the greatest benefit of a personal property memorandum is that it can help eliminate or reduce animosity between loved ones. Say for example you leave all these items to your children to be distributed in equal shares.
This strategy is both logical and fair, but it doesn’t take into consideration what relationship each child might have with certain items, and what their feelings are as to who should get what.
The personal property memorandum makes clear your intentions and provides direction, which in the end, might ease hard feelings among siblings.
In truth, maybe the personal property memorandum isn’t for you. But therein lies the beauty. If you have a Will, you can choose to use or not use the memorandum, and if you change your mind, make the adjustment, sign the page and call it a day.
