August 11, 2020

One of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of your estate planning is considering what you’ll do with your personal property. It is not recommended that you give all of your personal property to one of your beneficiaries and trust that they will be able to distribute it according to your wishes.

One of the most common methods for a person to deal with their personal property inside their estate is to distribute it equally among beneficiaries.

This does give everyone a say in the distribution but is not a perfect plan. You can use something known as a distribution clause to ensure that your wishes are clearly documented. You could, for example, establish a time limit for parties involved to agree as to how personal property should be distributed. This will primarily fall on the personal representative or the person named in your estate planning documents to handle the management of closing out your estate as well as your personal property.

The personal representative, for example, might be instructed through your will’s distribution clause to sell any personal property that is not the subject of an agreement within five months after the date of the person’s death. This can let everyone involved in the distribution clause know that if they are not able to come to reasonable terms of agreement and work it out on their own that the property might be sold to someone else.

This can help to spur along the possibility of collaboration and moving towards resolution. Another way to ensure that a distribution clause is taken seriously is to include a personal property distribution letter. This ensures that the testator can leave a properly executed property distribution letter detailing who gets what so there are limited opportunities for confusion.

Our NJ law firm is here to help you with estate planning needs.