Does your attorney need your financial bank account information to prepare your will or trust?

Attorney Tom Olsen: Chrissie, when we do living trust for people, and when we do will document for people, standard procedure for us is, we put everything in a notebook nice and organized. We scan everything for our file, we put a scanned copy of all their documents on a thumb drive, and we do recommend that they share the trust and will documents themselves with who's ever going to take care of business for them if they became incompetent or passed away. Nowhere does our office gather your financial information. Your bank accounts, and bank account numbers and bank balances, no, we don't have that information.

Attorney Chris Merrill: correct. We do not, the public records would not, and furthermore, let's add to that, Tom, is that you're right. Not only do we not have the account information, because people often think, "Oh, I have to give you details and the account numbers and the information." No, we don't need that, and we also do not, and people are again pleasantly surprised. We want to make sure, because attorneys do do this, but we do not put in social security numbers, or birth dates, or bank account information.

All of that is always kept private through this process. It's important for people to realize that when you do this, and when you do a living trust, that all of that confidential information about you and your family members are always private and they're never given to us, and it's never recorded in the public records.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Chrissie, speaking, of which, last week, I had a lady call me and we had done a will for her aunt. Her aunt had named her as the executor of her estate. So now the aunt has passed away, and so she called me and says, "Tom, can you tell me what my own aunt owned? Can you tell me about her bank accounts and how much money she had?" This and that, and I go "No, we don't gather that information. That's not part of what we do here. We don't need to know those things."

So she can have to use the old fashioned way, which is what people do, and that is, you look at the aunt's mail, you look around her house, you find bank statements, that's how you figure it out. As well, when we put these notebooks together for people, if you want to do your kids, and your successor trustee or executive personal representative big favor then, make a good list of what your financial assets are, and put it in the notebook with them and make their life that much easier.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Exactly, Tom. You're right, which is back to your point about the notebook. That is this, is that, we encourage people, we help them to get organized, they keep this notebook in a safe place. Then, if they keep it up to date, as in even once a year, make sure that all their information about their accounts is up to date, then it's going to make it easy for their loved ones.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Exactly. Hey, folks, my name is Tom Olsen. The name of the show is Olsen on Law. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in just a few minutes.