Ms. Hathaway, now 58, flew from Washington, D.C., to her mother's home in Menlo Park, Calif., where she spent three days searching for the certificates before finding them behind an antique organ in the family room. This was one example, Ms. Hathaway said, of how her mother's finances weren't in order.

As her mother's health deteriorated, Ms. Hathaway said she and other family members spent considerable time and "well into the thousands of dollars" in legal fees to sort out the finances.

Although Ms. Hathaway's mother, who died in 2003, had put her home into a trust, she had not created a detailed record of her other assets or explained how she wanted them divided among her relatives. "It's gut-wrenching enough to have a mother succumb to a disease like Alzheimer's, but then to have to deal with the financial mess exacerbates everything," said Ms. Hathaway, a lawyer. "It's just horrendous."

Many people, of course, don't like the thought of planning for the eventual disposal of their assets. But when people fail to make estate-planning decisions while they are alive and well, the results for their heirs can be costly and stressful.

A lack of planning can also limit the ability of children to carry out their parents' wishes, according to many financial experts who are familiar with estate planning.

"From a psychological standpoint, it's very important for people to know what your plans are and to be explicit about what you would like to see happen after your death," said Sherwin Lesk, a certified financial planner and an estate lawyer at Leonetti & Associates, Inc., an investment advisory firm based in Buffalo Grove, Ill. "You can save your family a lot of grief."

Even when parents make certain provisions, failure to anticipate the possibility of family disagreements can have consequences. Carolyn Hecathorn, a homemaker who died in 1994 in Orinda, Calif., named her three daughters as equal partners of a trust that she had set up earlier. But according to one of the daughters, Tara Mantell-Hecathorn, the trust required unanimous rather than majority agreement, and the daughters could not all agree on how to split their mother's assets. The siblings, who were once close, according to Ms. Mantell-Hecathorn, spent the next four years embroiled in costly legal arguments.

Allen Purkiss, a certified financial planner and principal at Purkiss Capital Advisors in Ridgefield, Conn., says that while it is important to decide on appropriate financial and legal estate-planning vehicles, it is just as important to think about the details and to discuss decisions with beneficiaries.

"In a will, you can be as vague or specific as you want," Mr. Purkiss said. "The key is thinking it through. The more communication there is, through a letter to the executor and conversations with the children, the less room there is for misunderstanding."

Understanding the implications of how assets are passed along can save time and money for beneficiaries. Some parents, however, remain reluctant to discuss such matters with their children or to agree to particular legal maneuvers for fear that such moves are tantamount to losing control of their finances and assets.

Jo Anne Paynter, a financial planner from Grove City, Ohio, still has regrets over her mother's refusal to put her Melbourne Beach, Fla., home in a trust. Under Florida law, doing so would have allowed Ms. Paynter, an only child, to inherit the home without having to go through the standard probate hearing needed to establish the validity of her mother's will.

Ms. Paynter said her mother became upset when the topic was raised and was unwilling to pay the $600 needed to set up the trust. After her mother's death in 2002, Ms. Paynter wound up with a $19,000 probate bill, equal to about 3 percent of the value of the house she inherited. She says she still wonders whether she should have offered to pick up the cost of the trust, even if it meant "having a conversation beyond the level of comfort."

Although Ms. Paynter's mother did not set up a trust, she did at least have a will. More than 57 percent of Americans don't, according to a 2003 survey by FindLaw.com, a Web site that provides information about the legal system.

If someone dies without a will, a court appoints an administrator to wrap up the person's financial affairs, and beneficiaries are determined according to state law. Under these circumstances, the beneficiaries have to figure out the assets in an estate, a process that can take months if not years.

But a will, on its own, may not make life much easier for beneficiaries.

"Even if there's a will in place it may not say, 'Here are all my assets and all my accounts,' " said Carl Emerick, a senior financial adviser at Sentinel Wealth Management at Reston, Va.

Estate planners and lawyers say checkbook registries, bank and investment statements and tax returns offer many clues to what a deceased person left behind if no detailed list is available. If, after reviewing them, beneficiaries think that there may still be missing assets, they can turn to their state comptroller's office, where money from inactive bank and brokerage accounts eventually goes.

Beneficiaries can track down missing assets through a state's office for unclaimed property. In New York State, funds are held by the state comptroller and can be located online at http://www.osc.state.ny.us

After a blood clot in her lung nearly killed Dr. Trudy Couch five years ago, she said she realized that she had some instructions that she wanted to write out for her loved ones. While she had set up a trust to shelter her assets and had named Joanne Cogar, one of her daughters, as executor, she had not left any specific records detailing what her assets were and where they were held.

Once she recuperated, Dr. Couch, now 93 and living in Silver Spring, Md., remedied that situation by drafting a personal instruction booklet. In it, she listed the names and contact numbers of her doctors, accountants and financial advisers, and of all the people she wants to be notified when she dies. She added an outline of the milestones in her life, to serve as a legacy.

DR. COUCH, a retired professor of health education at Wayne State University in Detroit, has used her experience as the basis for a workbook, "Passing On Thoughtfully: How to While You Still Can." It is available for $14.95, plus shipping and handling, from Project Compassion (www.project-compassion.org), a nonprofit organization based in Chapel Hill, N.C.

"If you're asking someone to be your agent," Dr. Couch said, "you have to tell them where and what and why."

By Jennifer Friedlin
The New York Times
January 2, 2005