The Shivers

One of my children’s favorite stories is The Shivers from Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad anthology. It begins as many good stories do—on a dark and stormy night. Frog and Toad sit down with a pot of tea and Frog proceeds to tell Toad a scary story, repeatedly asking, “Don’t you like to feel the shivers?” The story ends well, although Toad is left wondering if the story really happened or if Frog can just spin a good yarn.

Often we do like to feel the shivers, so long as the story is not one that happened to us or has a happy ending. Part of our job at Strauss Attorneys is to assure our clients that their children and beneficiaries will not “feel the shivers” after they die. But, to do that, we must be careful in our planning, always keeping a close eye on where those pitfalls are that may cause a family legacy to turn into a story-they-wish-was-someone-else’s.

That is why attorneys make good authors: We have seen it all. It’s not that we have particularly good imaginations, it’s that our clients give us so much material. With that in mind, here is one story for you about tangible personal property (or a person’s “stuff” like furniture, jewelry, heirlooms, pets, etc…) that may give you the shivers.

A mother and father had three sons. The parents lived in Florida but had a home in New York that they would spend a good deal of time at during the summer. The New York home was full to the gills with artwork, specialized furniture, old periodicals, and sentimental/familial items. One of the brothers lived close to mom and dad in New York. Eventually, mom and dad died. Before their passing, they did what-you-should-never-do with the items in their New York home—they put color stickies on the items to designate which brother got which item. There are several reasons why someone should never do that, but for the purposes of this story, the point is that they are easily switched. Which, I suspect, is precisely what the son who lived closest to the New York home did before the locks on the house could be changed. To no surprise, his color sticky just happened to be on all the most expensive items in the house. To make a long story short, resolving the issues related to mom and dad’s money was easy. The dispute regarding the personal property dragged on for years and eventually ended in the brothers attending a mediation but not being able to be in the same building as each other. Mediation took place in three separate buildings and was resolved only at 2:00 AM after a multi-day mediation.

For many clients, that story gives them “the shivers”. They say, though, that that would never happen in their family. For every estate-planning attorney, on the other hand, that story gives them indigestion because it is all too familiar. Every estate planner has their own anthology of horror regarding tangible personal property. It might be difficult to resolve issues related to money, but it is nearly impossible to resolve issues related to tangible personal property without permanent damage to the family.

To avoid these issues ripping families apart, we at Strauss Attorneys spend so much time discussing tangible personal property with our clients. While there are many ways for a client to leave these items to beneficiaries, perhaps the most common way is for them to fill out what we call a Personal Property Memorandum (or the PPM). The PPM is something the client fills out at his or her own leisure after signing either a will or a trust. The PPM allows the client to make a list of items they want to go to particular people. Some clients take pictures of the item to better help identify them and keep the pictures with the PPM. Once the client has the PPM in its final form, they simply bring it to Strauss Attorneys, where we witness and notarize it (at no charge). Once that is done, the PPM is a part of the will or trust and legally binding. It is a flexible and efficient way to deal with tangible personal property.

While we might have been deprived of the story above, had the parents filled out a PPM, they would have preserved what was left of their sons’ relationship with each other and also saved them tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees.

Don’t give your children and beneficiaries the shivers. Let the attorneys at Strauss Attorneys help you navigate this delicate and intimate matter so that the only stories left when you die are the good ones.