Make Gold And Silver Left In Your Will Easy For Your Descendants To Sell
Elderly persons who have amassed a significant amount of gold jewelry, coins, or bars likely wish to bequeath the precious metals to family and loved ones. Drawing up a will is advisable, and so is taking certain steps that allow your heirs to more easily sell all or some of the precious metals. Covering funeral, legal, or other expenses then becomes less of a burden.
Remove Some Jewelry from the Safety Deposit Box
The most secure location for any collection of expensive jewelry is a safety deposit box. Putting all the jewelry into a safety deposit box, however, may create some hassles for heirs.
Upon your passing, there could be inheritance tax issues the bequeathed must deal with. When you pass away, state and/or federal tax authorities could literally block the removal of the contents of a bank's safety deposit box in a bank until an inventory is taken. This is done to determine the value of the items in the box. Selling any gold or silver in the box becomes impossible until the audit is over.
So, store some of the jewelry in a safe in the home. Placing some of the jewelry in a safe does not exclude any responsibilities for inheritance tax, but safety deposit box impediments to quickly making a sale are removed.
Weigh, Tag, and Appraise Jewelry
The value of coin or silver bars is not always difficult to determine. Unless the items are collectibles, the will be worth their current value per ounce on the open market. Jewelry requires a bit more work to ascertain value. Do some of the work on behalf of your descendants.
Weigh the merchandise and tag on the jewelry with the information. For rare and collectible jewelry, have an appraisal performed and keep the appraisal documents in an envelope next to the jewelry. A gold or silver buyer like Wimpey's Pawn Shop likely could perform the appraisal. These steps further make things easier for someone wishing to sell to gold and silver buyers.
Send Necessary Documents to Service Professionals
Forward any and all information related to the gold and silver to the family's lawyer and accountant. This way, all necessary distributions of the jewelry is able to take place quickly and the ability to immediately produce an estate tax return can be done.
Look into finding the best gold and silver buyers in your area or online. In your estate files, you could leave a recommendation for a buyer to your descendants. Steps such as these definitely take a burden off the shoulders of family members who are going to be grieving about your passing.
Share