Taxation & Estate Planning

Stock Certificates and Probate

By Joel A. Schoenmeyer

One of the things that I emphasize as an estate planner is "making things easy" for the people who will ultimately handle your estate, by getting yourself organized. That saves them a lot of aggravation, and will also save your estate a fair amount of money, as no one will need to pay an attorney $200+ per hour to figure out how many bank accounts you had, or whether you executed a Will.

Columnist Christopher Yugo espouses the same philosophy in this Q&A regarding stock certificates. As a probate attorney, stock certificates are a real nuisance (and it sounds like Mr. Yugo has had the same experience). The best approach is to set up a brokerage account, and let an investment professional take care of fulfilling all necessary transfer agent requirements.

Full post as published by Death and Taxes Blog on September 16, 2008 (boomark / email).