Minnesota Probate and Estate Planning Blog

Corporate owners in many occupations proudly display the fruits of their business acumen. The auto dealership owner drives a Ford Shelby. The dentist dazzles his friends with a bright, white smile. The jeweler's wife wears a 6-carat flawless diamond wedding ring. 

Some professionals, such as brain surgeons, do not perform their own brain surgery. They recruit a team of esteemed colleagues to do the honors. Famous film stars use stunt doubles. A judge hires an experienced probate attorney to draw up his estate plan. 

"Letters Testamentary" is a Minnesota court order appointing a person as personal representative or executor of the Will of a deceased person.

The terminology "Letters" comes from Old English legal usage that meant a writ or order issued by a judge. "Testamentary" refers to the written document called a Will which provides for the distribution of the possessions of a loved one after he or she dies.

Letters Testamentary gives the person appointed the legal authority to stand in the shoes of the decedent. In other words, the personal representative can get any information about accounts or assets or manage the assets that the decedent had.

Let's face it. Many families have a Black Sheep that has caused serious problems for the family and himself or herself.

When it comes to working on your estate plan, you may do so with the goal of leaving as much of what you worked your whole life to obtain behind for your loved ones as possible.

However, in some cases, there may be additional considerations involved. For example, maybe you have several children, and you want to distribute your assets between or among them after your passing, but you do not necessarily want to make equal distributions to each of your children.

Perhaps you have a child who has been attentive to your physical or health needs while another child or children may have not done so. You may want to reward the child who sacrificed to give you that care.

Similarly, you may have a child who is struggling with, for example,  alcohol, drug or gambling problem, and you have concerns about leaving this child money and are considering perhaps disinheriting him or her.

In such situations, you may want to consider establishing a living trust, which can help address these and similar family issues. Just how can creating a trust help you, if you are facing one of the above situations?

If you are like most people, you are putting more of your digital life on the internet. You put memorable family pictures on Facebook or other social media. Your on-line banking and tax records are very likely saved on your computer. You scan important documents and upload them to your computer. You save important hobby or recreational data on line. If you own web domains or an online business, those are valuable assets of your estate.

According to 100memories.com, if you are 65 years of age or more, on an average 12% of your vital information is preserved on line. If you're age 45, 56% of your life data is locked in your computer. At age 25, 72% of your history is web-based and if you were born in this century, a whopping 86% of your life records are digital.

What would happen to that treasured data if you die or become disabled and cannot retrieve them? Would these assets be lost to you and your heirs?