Nooks and Crannies of Estate Planning

By Jack Davidson

WHEN I MOVED FROM NEW YORK CITY to Vermont in 1970, the moving van housed a few albums and books. Many more books and albums migrated to where I live now as my ancestors migrated to—we hope—heaven. During my time in Vermont, I have lived in three houses that were built before the twentieth century and each house had bookcases and many of those books are now housed in my third house. 

The end result is that I have many stuffed bookcases and many family pictures as well. So, what happens when—if—I end up in a nursing home? My next generation is not inclined to accept the migration of my books, plus many old movies that are housed on video tapes and DVD’s, not to mention most of the photo albums. 

My Nook and Cranny 

So, I have a solution, but when planning one’s estate we need to focus on probabilities. WHAT happens if I lose my iPad? 

I started to store my albums in “the cloud” (defined as “a network of remote servers accessed over the internet”).  I simply go to my album on my iPad and look back in time. 

My books are now easily available online as well. I can read them or listen to them from my iPad. And my old movies are available online too.

My Den 

I now have a device that holds my iPad. In this picture, I have flipped over the iPad holder so you can see what my iPad would look like. When I sit in this chair, I can simply flip over the iPad and see or hear whatever I want. I can also project to a large TV screen nearby. 

I have three concerns: 

1. What happens if I lose or drop my iPad? 

2. Do I trust cloud storage? 

3. How much of my executor’s time and my estate’s money will it cost when the books need to travel elsewhere?