Settling Estates for Everyone: A Practical Guide and Action Plan to Handle Assets, Benefits, Taxes, Debts, Minors, and Much More

Learn how to prepare your estate and settle the estates of loved ones.

What needs to be done at the death of a loved one? There are four basic steps that must be followed. First is the arrangements for burial or cremation. Then the assets of the deceased have to be inventoried, followed by getting all debts paid and legal requirements met, followed by distributing the assets to the people who are supposed to get them according to the person’s will, trust, or state law. The job can be daunting, expensive, and time-consuming; especially if the deceased had not made proper plans for their estate by setting up a will or trust beforehand. Settling a person’s estate is something most people, other than lawyers, have never done. Help is right here in Settling Estates for Everyone.

This book is a guide for those responsible for wrapping up the personal and financial affairs of the deceased. It is a resource identifying the steps that may need to be taken prior to and after a person’s death, and a practical guide to assist those who must deal with asset collection and disposition, tax and legal issues, applying for benefits such as Social Security, life insurance, Veterans benefits, debts, dealing with issues involving minor children and employment benefit plans. With this book as a guide, the process of administering and wrapping up a deceased’s estate will be much simpler.

Ronald Farrington Sharp, Esquire, has practiced family and estate law since 1975 after attending the University of Michigan and Wayne State University Law Schools. He has personally prepared over three thousand trusts and is the author of How to Probate for Everyone, Living Trusts for Everyone, and Winning the Divorce War (all from Allworth Press), as well as No Regrets, No Remorse (Poisoned Pen Press). An award-winning mystery writer and sculptor, Sharp is married to the artist Susannah Keith and has three children and three terrific granddaughters. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.