Throughout your lifetime, you may have characterized yourself as a planner. This may be translated into planning a comprehensive estate plan. But also, you may go as far as planning your funeral and burial, along with even covering their costs in advance. So as not to let your efforts go in vain, there is a specific way you should leave behind your directions and funds. With that said, please follow along to find out how to best leave instructions behind for your funeral and burial arrangements, and how a proficient New York City estate planning attorney at Zimmet Law Group, P.C., can help you prepare this.
How can I leave instructions behind for my funeral and burial arrangements?
Though it might go against your instinct, please avoid leaving your funeral and burial instructions in your Last Will and Testament document. In short, this is because your loved ones might plan your funeral and burial before getting around to filing your will document with the New York State Surrogate’s Court. In other words, they might not unearth your expressed preferences until it is too late.
Instead, please consider writing these directions down in a separate document, namely, a funeral arrangement document. Here, you may be as specific with your preferences as you want. For example, you may list out who you want to be notified of and invited to your funeral services. This may be in addition to who you want to serve as pallbearers and who you want to sing a hymn, lead a prayer, and give a eulogy, among many other things.
How can I leave funds behind to cover my funeral or burial expenses?
No matter how clear you are on your funeral and burial preferences, it may not matter if your loved ones do not have enough funds to execute them properly. Understandably, you may not want your loved ones to undergo financial stress when they are already struggling emotionally from your loss. With this, you may consider leaving behind funds to cover your anticipated funeral and burial costs. This may be accomplished in any one of the following ways:
- You may prepay a funeral home and cemetery directly for the quote on your preferred arrangements.
- You may transfer funds into an irrevocable funeral trust and name a beneficiary to receive these funds.
- You may set up a payable on death account and name a loved one with the ability to access these funds.
- You may encourage the beneficiary of your life insurance policy to use these funds to cover your funeral and burial.
That said, you must inform your loved ones of what you ultimately arrange, so that they do not use their personal savings instead. If this blog has deeply resonated with your personal situation and concerns thus far, please reach out to a talented New York City estate planning attorney for more information. The team at Zimmet Law Group, P.C., will be glad to represent you in your upcoming legal case.
