Thanks for the reminder K447. Wills etc is something that has very much been on the back burner for way too long for my wife and I.

All of this hits close to home at the moment.

My late partner left the passcode and her lastpass master password before she died; her last wishes were an inadmissible will but her next of kin and i disagree in details only in that each of us is trying to get the other to take the residue of her fiscal estate, so at least it's not a stressor

We have a safe. Two non-resident family members have the code. In the safe, hard copy wills and deeds, but also a print out of an excel sheet with a list of all account details and passwords on it. The list is re-printed one or two times a year. First entry is a pointer to the Excel file and the file password. The file is updated at least annually as part of tax returns.

Account details include banks, investment a/cs, computer passwords, lastpass, phone passcodes, credit cards, insurance, vehicle records, high value assets. Most of this stuff is quite static so it's long winded to set it up initially but very low maintenance.

Can't recommend highly enough doing something like this if you have dependent family or any vaguely complex list of possessions.

Memory stick containing the Excel file kept in the safe with the papers?

In event of a fire - computers burned, safe contents may also be toasted.

Off site replication of the information?

This is the thing, how far do you go with it all?

But I'm the black sheep!

A core test would be ‘if the house and all contents/computers are completely gone, can I carry on with the data/password listings/whatever stored elsewhere?’

And if I am also gone, will the people managing our affairs and the estate be able to figure it all out, with reasonable efforts?

I guess I'd be leaving things in a better state than my brother did, but some simple things are soooo difficult. My wife can't talk to our phone services provider because she's not authorised to, I just don't have the time/energy to wade through automated phone systems to get this done (as an example).

Something to keep in mind, if/when she/someone informs the provider that you have deceased, your authorization for her, or others, may instantly also expire.

This MAY also include your credit card automated payment authorization, so someone has to make sure the telecom/services account does not go into arrears while things are being sorted out.

Until the provider is served with official paperwork authorizing them to work with the person handling your estate/affairs, it can happen that no-one is authorized to do anything.

This can create a paradox whereby the efficient approach is to not tell them anything, just make changes. I had this happen with a family member’s stock/investment account. I first issued (online) orders to sell everything and go to cash. Waited a week or two to confirm it was all completed and things were stable, THEN I told them about the executor authorization.