Death claim part I: Make it easy
April 3, 2023
DD Planet
Death is unavoidable. We work day and night to take care of our family and hence it becomes important for us to complete certain formalities so that in the event of any mishap, our assets are passed to our family members (or someone we wish) with minimum hassles.
Here are the quick tips to make it easy for your heirs:
- Get into the habit of writing nominee details. Specify a nominee for each of your bank accounts, your dmat accounts, your trading accounts, your lockers, your other financial assets such as mutual funds, bonds, securities and so on wherever it is available.
- Specify a nominee for all your vehicles.
- Make sure that the details of each of your nominees are correct. You may fill the form yourself.
- Keep in mind that we are living in an online world where we don’t get physical documents for many of our investments. Therefore, at least inform your nominees and heirs (or at least to someone you trust) about your bank accounts and other investments’ identification numbers If you are not currently willing to disclose the details like amount. You may even write it on a paper and keep it somewhere in your house that is known to your heirs or in a bank locker.
- You should give details about your life insurance, accident insurance and other such insurance to all of the beneficiaries (or at least to someone you trust).
- If you are making a joint fixed deposit in a bank or other similar such things, you can specify whether the fixed deposit can be closed by the other joint holder after your death. This is required even if your joint account is running in ‘Either or Survivor’ mode. If this is not done, the signatures of all legal heirs of the joint holder (who has died) will be required if you wish to close the deposit before maturity. Remember that when we open deposits via netbanking, there does not exist such a mandate by default.
- Avoid auto-renewal in deposits or money multiplier or linked accounts so that money comes in saving accounts automatically if you have not given the joint mandate as specified in point 6 above. This will help the survivor or your heirs to close the deposit separately from the saving accounts since if it is a deposit linked to your savings account, all the accounts will be settled together.
- Make a WILL that, apart from your movable assets like your bank accounts, other financial assets & investments, devices like mobile phones and vehicles et cetera, also includes all your immovable assets such as your house, your jewellery, your computers, your other real estate properties and so on.
- Do not forget to mention the details of certain immovable assets in your WILL, such as your real estate (for example, the title of your property) and your vehicles (for example, car details).
- Specify clearly the names of all your heirs whom you wish to transfer your assets and the proportion each of them should get.
- If you are into a business, you must write the details of your factories, warehouses, shops and other assets related to the business.
- You may also mention in your WILL that certain amount from your financial assets should be deducted for your medical and your last rite expenses before the money is passed to your heirs and if those expenses were borne by one of your heirs, he or she should get that amount first before the mentioned assets are passed in the specified proportion to all of your heirs.
- If you have other assets like your music, your books, arts et cetera, you need to specify all such things as well in your WILL.
- Take WILL to the court and get it properly registered and stamped.
- Inform someone you trust about your WILL and how it can be made available to your heirs after your death.
