In my recent blog posts about transition events in a person’s life I spoke about the need for a Financial Plan to ensure good decisions were made.
One transition event, sadly, is the death of a relative.
This week I have spent some time listening to the story of a client about the death over Christmas of his mother.
She sounds like she was an amazing woman; raising her children after the death of their father and fighting serious illness for the best part of 50 years.
Despite that he described her as the “life and soul of the party”, not in a loud boisterous way, but very engaged with talking to people and hearing about their life stories.
Her death in a hospice prompted her son to speak glowingly of the kindness and support of the staff there; not just for his mother but for him and his family as well.
There really are some lovely and kind people out there who will help in the hour of need.
It seems almost cruel to bring this round to the subject of Financial Planning but for many of us, after the initial period of grief, there will be a need to deal with the finances of the loved one who has died.
Grief isn’t a temporary event but sometimes people are able to distract themselves a little from having to deal with practical problems.
We may well have to deal with probate and the reporting that results from that.
Ultimately there may be money to distribute to the next generations. This is where Financial Planning has a role to play.
It could be that rather than the adult children receiving their inheritance the money skips a generation and becomes available to the grandchildren (sometimes through a Deed of Variation). A robust Financial Plan will help to determine what is best here.
I hope the fact that I was prepared to sit and listen to the story of his mother helped him just a little. I really hope it did.
Financial Planning has a role to play when distributing money to the next generations Share on X