Oct 4, 2023
This is a very common question that we
get from Solo Agers. We’ll review the pros and cons of making that
decision.
Reasons to sell your home before you die
The biggest
reason Solo Agers want to sell their home before they die is
because they don’t want to leave a mess for their loved
ones. Otherwise,
there may be a lot of cleaning, maintenance, and packing for the
heirs to do. Additionally, the
house may need renovations before it is in sellable
condition.
Another reason is that Solo Agers may want to downsize
anyway. Downsizing is a different topic, so we won’t focus on that
here.
Reasons to leave selling your home to your executor after you die
I often suggest
that our Solo Agers live where they want and leave the task of
selling the home to the executor after they
pass.
Don’t
spend your final years cleaning, packing, staging, and moving if
that’s not what you want to do. It’s probably
not on your bucket list to clean
out your garage before you die. Do those things you always wanted
to do. Enjoy life!
If you still
feel that obligation to put things in order for your heirs, please
know that probate is a mess no matter
what.
Don’t bother trying to leave it
perfect. What if you clean
out your home and you live longer than you expected? Now a new mess
will accumulate. Even if you could know the exact date of your
death, it still won’t work out perfectly.
Another example of “helping” heirs is making treasure
maps to your keys or passwords. Don’t do it. You may move your keys
or change your password and forget to update your treasure map. You
don’t need to spend your final days and years making your death
convenient for everyone else.
If you are
still worried about burdening your heirs or executor, you could
hire a professional executor. This could be us, or a bank, or a fiduciary
company. It is the
job of the professional executor to handle
the cleanout, renovations, etc.
Because we do these things so
often, it’s not a big deal for us. And if something complex were to
happen, then that’s our job, too. That’s what we get paid for. You
can rest knowing that your professional executor
is
experienced and
capable. You won’t have
to burden your heirs with the tasks, and you won’t have to spend
your final years worrying about what will happen after you
die.
Most
Solo Agers are relieved when they learn that a professional executor can
handle all of this. My book, “The Solo Ager Estate Plan,” can
help you decide which tasks (if any) you should worry about before
you die.
I
enjoy meeting more and more Solo Agers; it’s a growing population.
As I work with them, I also learn a lot of things that I can pass
along to all of you.
Complete this form to receive your complimentary copy of Anthony’s Amazon best-seller, “The Solo Ager Estate Plan”