What Will Happen to My Business When I Die?

Well this is an uncomfortable topic. I don’t like it even a little bit. However…it is reality whether I like it or not.

When I chose to be a business owner, I assumed responsibility for the income and career security of my team. It is a scary thing to be in charge of. That means that I need to be prepared for them to be taken care of even if something happens to me.

A few years ago, I learned about something called a TOD. This stands for "Transfer On Death”. The purpose of this is to a designate assets to be transferred directly to a named beneficiary upon the account holder's death, bypassing probate. This protects the people that work at your business. Probate can be lengthy, stressful and costly. It is kind to your family and your team to simply avoid this.

It was a relatively easy process to set up my TOD. I worked with a specific attorney locally to set this up and draw up all of the paperwork. We confirmed with the people we decided to transfer the business to if something were to happen to me and my husband. We decided to pick two family members to be responsible for the entities in this event.

These family members have the proper paperwork and the passwords needed in case this is something they need to step into.

To be honest, I hated dealing with it. It did cost a bit of money (not too much though!) and it took a bit of time. It was worth it and now it is secured and I feel at peace about it. It also does not need to be updated further unless we change the name of the business, ownership of the business or change the beneficiaries. 

I would encourage you to have a TOD or something similar set up if you own a business!

Stay tuned- Subscribers will get a deep dive into this topic about everything you need to make sure you are covered.

So much love,

Melanie