When It Comes To Bank and Investment Accounts Less Can Be More

When reviewing your estate plan, it might pay to look at how many bank, savings, checking, and investment acounts that you hold.  Many clients simply have too many.  They keep their stock certificates in a lock box - making them difficult to trade and very difficult for heirs.

They maintain mutilple accounts which drive up fees and can result in lost assets both during life, and at death.

Furthermore, a hodge podge of small accounts with multiple beneficiaries my result in a small probate fee savings but a division of assets that is unequal or not what was intended.  So multiple acounts are harder to manage, hard to pla, and more likely to casue a dispute among heirs.

You don't have to take my word for it.  I don't often agree with the New York Times, but in this article they make some great points about the difficulties of large numbers of accounts and what to do about it.

The New York Times On How Many Accounts Are Too Many - Less Is More.

David M Frees III
Asset Protection * Estate Planning *  Wills and Trusts