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Age! - The midlife column: Make your will!

2021-03-09T17:22:57.790Z


And, everything cleared for the final case of the cases? To think about your own death in good health and in the "prime" seems absurd. If you try it, you'll find: It's comforting. An instruction.


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You don't have to leave that many documents behind for your descendants

Photo: Jorg Greuel / Getty Images

"Now you can make your will," says Fiona, my wife, and doesn't mean it threateningly, but in time: "And the living will!"

This has been important to her for a long time, I put it off for a long time.

Hopefully, dealing with preparations for illness and death did not seem obvious to me at 50 plus.

Also: what should I inherit?

For a long time I only knew the subject of "wills" from crime novels.

Before my generation, there was never any property in our family.

We rented apartments or houses, jewelry was something for "those up there," and savings were virtually non-existent.

My house, my car, my boat?

Sure: colliery house, Opel Kadett, folding boat.

Do you need more?

It took me a long time to understand that an estate is not just about distributing some kind of "fortune".

My father first had to become defenselessly administered due to an erupting brain tumor and then he had to die.

He left my mother grieving - and pretty helpless.

The two had not taken any precautions: There was no patient, no care will, no power of attorney.

Insurance, pensions and bank documents lay in various folders in a rather disordered manner, sort of collapsed in bags according to company and color.

Most of it was antiquarian, but without historical value.

That caused a chaos, as one can neither need it in times of care and dying, nor in the time of mourning afterwards.

Months after my father's death, there were invoices for insurances that had not been paid because they had been forgotten or had not been found and the like.

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In addition, the vultures from the banking, finance and insurance industries kept coming down on my mother in order to force urgent investments, insurance and insurance on her.

If you don't have an eye on what you already have and what you should even part with, that doesn't make things any easier.

The fact that my mother had to discover that she also first had to get

access to all the existing contracts

, because only he had ever signed them, is not necessarily a generation-specific problem: something like that still exists.

Nor is it gender specific: very often it is "she" who keeps the machinery of life under control and running.

If you do, change it.

Absolutely, immediately:

All accounts and contracts should be managed together

.

This includes corresponding signatures vis-à-vis the companies, but also that one informs one another.

Knowledge of domination causes stress, especially when it is not needed.

You can also spare your relatives that.

What do you need to make your own exit for the bereaved as smoothly as possible?

  • a will

  • Living wills, power of attorney and care will

  • a trash can and one to three files

  • a password book

Let's get in: Why do you need a will?

In crime novels, wills are solemnly read out by notaries before the bereaved begin to kill each other because of the division of millions of assets.

In real life, a will is more likely to ensure that there are fewer arguments.

People with a lot of wealth know this and usually also how to approach it (lawyer, notary, deposit, etc.).

Anyone who owns so much that the tax-free allowances are exceeded (for example, 400,000 euros per child) can usually create a watertight, detailed will.

I don't know about you, but I don't need it: for people who have little or only moderate wealth,

the "Berlin Testament" is usually sufficient.

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This is what it is about: Basically, the succession in our country is determined by law.

Heirs are primarily spouses and children.

The problem with this is that they are equal parts, and instantly.

In other words: Whatever you inherit will go to your heirs immediately after your death.

In extreme cases, this can mean that the ill-advised, severely drug-addicted offspring could urge Mutti to sell the house (the car, the folding boat) under her bum.

On the other hand, a will helps that, as it were, graduate the succession: the inheritance is then first the remaining partner and only after his / her death the children again in equal parts.

The »Berlin Testament« protects the remaining partner

(if any)

above all

.

You don't even need a notary for it.

You put it on by hand and draw it against - that's it.

The will, however, has to meet certain content and formal requirements: You can find out exactly how this works - with an explanation of the advantages and disadvantages - in detail at Finanztipp, including a sample.

In the Juraforum there is a more detailed model for a "denser" spouse's will, which also thinks about the apparently threatening crisis.

If you want to be absolutely sure, you can deposit the “spouse's will” at the local court for a fee of 75 euros.

Time required: one to two hours.

Living wills, power of attorney, care will

When my father began to die, my mother was unable to make decisions for him.

I don't mean that psychologically or emotionally, but legally: Because there were no orders on his part, my mother first had to initiate a care procedure at the local court, the result of which authorized her to "provisionally" according to §1896 and §1897 BGB about "residence determination for medical treatment and health care «to determine my father.

It was authorized in this way initially for six months, an extension of course possible.

Can you imagine the stress?

It could have been avoided completely if three documents had been presented in advance:

  • The living will

    stipulates which forms of medical treatment the patient himself or herself wants or refuses.

  • The care

    decree makes a named person according to §1896 (see above) the carer who is allowed to make decisions on behalf of the patient that the patient can no longer make himself.

  • The power of attorney

    makes a person of trust as the patient's representative in matters of contract and other decision-making cases.

    Which exactly and to what extent can be specified or narrowed down in detail.

The Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BmJV) offers a detailed brochure on the meaning and purpose of the rulings for download.

All the necessary forms are offered free of charge by various agencies, for example here:

  • At the BmJV

  • At the medical associations

  • At the Maltese Aid Service

Most health insurance companies also offer such downloads.

You should go through all of this in detail with your partner and / or the person you trust and read up on anything you do not understand.

After filling out and signing, you keep the dispositions tidily with your personal documents.

Hand-signed copies are also given to the persons of trust named in the rulings.

Time required: You should set aside two to three hours for this important package.

Trash can and file folder

Do you have any idea where this is going?

If you think anything like me, you have an impressive collection of prehistoric insurance and financial records from the past 19 years.

Not all accounts still exist, not all insurance policies are still in place.

A bucket helps against this.

Although I don't know you, I can tell you: No, you no longer need the 2003 household insurance bill.

Honestly not.

Throw something like that away, dispose of it, let the inner shredder off the leash!

What should be left in the end: no more than the contracts that are still valid, the last proof of payment and those invoices that you have not yet submitted to the tax.

In my case, several kilograms of paper melted - I'll just say: bank statements up to 1995 - to maybe 100 grams.

And do you know what else I did then?

I wrote some kind of instruction manual for it.

A crystal clear list of what can be found where.

And how to get something online: bank accounts, insurance accounts, etc.

It felt like it took me two days, but it was worth it.

The password book

You don't have to take the term literally.

You can write passwords, online pins, etc. in a notebook that you put somewhere.

You can also store it online in encrypted form and give the person you trust the virtual key.

How you do it doesn't matter: the main thing is that you do it.

Nowhere do we bunker more knowledge of domination today than in relation to our secure online accounts.

If this is not passed on in an understandable form, it becomes Fort Knox.

That's it, at least normally.

Unless you're married to my wife: "Have you actually finished your playlist?" She asked me again.

She means the playlist for my funeral service, with music that I would like to hear there.

So that the matter becomes a little livelier than usual.

This, too, is a good plan to deal with: Step out in style.

But about that another time.

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-03-09

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