If you are not here next month
- Who is in the room
- You and one parent. Not both parents at once: two people defend each other, one person answers.
- How long
- Forty minutes, and plan for two sittings. Finishing it in one is a sign nobody said anything.
Why this one is hard
Because the question sounds like you are asking how long they have left, or worse, what you will get. It is neither. You are asking where the paper is.
Open with exactly this
Papa, I don't want to talk about money. I want to know where the papers are, so that if you are ever in hospital I am not opening cupboards at two in the morning.
Then, in this order
- 1
If you were in hospital tomorrow, which one thing would I not be able to find?
One thing, not everything. A question that asks for the whole cupboard gets the whole cupboard closed.
They sayIt is all with your mother.
You sayThen let us ask her to show me once, with you sitting there. I want you both to have said it out loud in the same room.
They sayNothing. Everything is in order.
You sayGood. Then show me the bank passbook. Just that one, and I will stop.
- 2
Whose name is actually on the house?
They sayIt is ancestral. It is all of ours.
You sayDo we have the paper, or do we have the memory of the paper? Those are different things at a registrar's office.
They sayWhy, are you asking for your share?
You sayNo. I am asking because if a hospital wants a signature and the name on the paper cannot sign, I need to know that today and not that night.
- 3
Who is written as the nominee on your bank account?
They sayYou children, obviously.
You sayA nominee is written on a form, not decided at home. Can we look at the form? The bank will not take our word for it.
They sayI filled that in 1994.
You sayThen it may still name someone who has died, or someone we no longer speak to. That is a fifteen-minute visit to the branch, and I will come with you.
- 4
Is there a loan I do not know about?
Ask it flatly and then stop talking. The silence after this question is doing the work; filling it with 'I mean, obviously not' is how you lose the answer.
They sayA small one. It is nothing.
You sayThen it is easy to tell me. Who lent it, and does anyone else's name sit on it as guarantor?
They sayThat is my matter.
You sayIt is, until it is not. A loan does not die with the person who took it, and I would rather hear the number from you than from a recovery call.
- 5
If I had to reach your money, what would I need that only you have?
Usually three things: a locker key, a phone that receives the OTP, and a password nobody has written down. Two of those are solvable this week.
They sayEverything is on my phone.
You sayThen the phone is the whole estate. Who else knows how to unlock it, and what happens if it is lost the same week you are ill?
What ends the conversation
- "You are not getting younger." True, irrelevant, and it ends the evening.
- Opening with the will. The will is the last question of the second sitting, never the first of the first.
- "How much is there?" The moment you ask for the total, the conversation is about inheritance, and they will hear every later question that way.
- Taking notes on your phone. It reads as a valuation. Use paper, in front of them.
How you know it worked
At the end you can write four lines without asking again: which bank, whose name is on the house, one nominee, and one loan or the plain absence of one. If you cannot write four, do not push. Book the second sitting.