Your Parent’s Real Estate
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
All of a sudden I realized I had become become the gatekeeper of my mom’s house. Thankfully, not forever, but long enough to realize that long distance ownership for real estate and managing somebody another person’s day-to-day tasks is not that easy.
Healthy parent(s) are wonderful, especially ones who have planned well and made sure to move assets into trusts, add somebody else’s name to the checking and savings accounts and left all the information where you can find it.
However a recent medical emergency highlighted that while mom was prepared for anything…I was not.
So here it goes- if you become temporary custodian of a single family home several hours away do you know the names and phone numbers of:
- Landscapers
- Utilities
- Newspaper
- Neighbors
- Account numbers/addresses for typical credit card bills
- How to work the sprinkling system
- Can you find the set of house keys you were given 15+ years ago
I think you can see where this is going.
My suggestion to you is to start planning now- just in case you need to address any or all of the issues in addition to managing an empty house.
Your suggestions and comments are always welcome.
