This isn’t anything about life expectancy or knowing you’ve four years to live, although both those comments can raise a full conversation on a regular basis. Life expectancy gets longer, but isn’t relative to any of us because of individual family history, health and fitness. As to knowing how long we have to live, medical experts can tell us two months and some live five years, while others unfortunately, get it the other way around.
This is about the football world cup, being held so far away in South Africa (unless you were lucky enough to either win a ticket for a game of have enough money that you’re using up your family’s inheritance) and almost nearing its end.
This means that for those of you who have sat through all sixty matches so far, the so called expert panel’s cumbersome views and any re-runs of matches, time is going to be spare again soon.
You may also have sat through the whole of Wimbledon which would have accounted for the rest of your life over the past two weeks just as the football eased off a little.
So what to do with the next few weeks before the football season starts again?
Presuming that you’ve allowed a little time before going on the annual holiday to places far away, this is also the time to take an hour or two to plan your finances, to look over your estate planning and to double check that your will writing and other legal documentation is still up to date.
If you say ‘what paperwork’ then you should contact a qualified professional quickly to start the process. They’ll let you know what you should be thinking about and meet with you very soon.
If you have already set the ‘wheels’ in motion before’ then you’ll have copies of your paperwork handy, because the originals will be in safe storage so they don’t get lost, burnt, stolen or destroyed by other relatives.
You should see if the people named are still relevant – have any died, moved away or changed their status (got married, divorced etc)? You need to check the amount of money and personal items, property etc to see if their value has increased, reduced or stayed the same. Have you change the items on your previous list?
If you find that significant changes need to be made then contact your professional adviser so he or she can visit you to discuss your suggestions and to update your documents.
Finally, make a diary entry to carry out this task on a regular basis, perhaps once or twice a year depending on the makeup of your estate, finances and health. Perhaps consider the sporting calendar so you know you’ve time to miss the next football competition, any cricket tests, tennis, the formula one circuit or whatever sports you follow. After all, it’s always great to find a real balance between living now and planning for the future, but never during a cup final.
Filed under: Wills