Estate Planning Basics: What Your Assets Need Decided and Who to Ask

What you need

Paste the snapshot template from this page with your assets and debts filled in. Estate planning depends on who owns what, so add a short note next to any asset held jointly, held through a company, or paying out to a named beneficiary, such as a life insurance policy or a pension.

Below the snapshot, add three lines:

• Country of residence: [country, plus any other country where you own property or accounts]
• Family situation: [e.g. married, two children under 18, a parent who relies on you]
• What is already in place: [e.g. a will from 2015 and no power of attorney, or "nothing"]

The country line lets the model separate general principles from questions that depend on local rules. It is not there so the model can state those rules. Inheritance law, protected shares for spouses and children, and inheritance tax differ widely between countries, and a model's summary of them can be out of date or wrong.

Leave out names, addresses and account numbers. Relationships and amounts are enough for this prompt.

Here is my financial snapshot. Use only these numbers.

Currency: [e.g. EUR]
Date: [today's date]
Age: [optional]

ASSETS
[name] — [category: cash / stocks / ETFs / crypto / property / metals / other] — [value]
[name] — [category] — [value]
...

LIABILITIES
[name] — [type: mortgage / car loan / credit card / student loan / other] — [outstanding balance] — [interest rate if known]
...

CONTEXT (optional but improves the answer)
Monthly income after tax: [amount]
Monthly spending: [amount]
Amount I add to savings or investments each month: [amount]
Value of the same assets 12 months ago: [amount]

The prompt

Copy this exact text and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini directly beneath your snapshot block.

You are a financial educator explaining estate planning to someone starting from
scratch. Using only my snapshot above and the three lines below:

Country of residence: [country]
Family situation: [describe]
What is already in place: [describe, or "nothing"]

1. Explain in plain language what estate planning is for and what it covers:
   wills, trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, beneficiary
   nominations and probate. One short paragraph each, and say where a concept
   works differently or does not exist in some legal systems.
2. Go through my assets and debts and say what decision each one needs: who
   should receive it, whether a beneficiary nomination or joint ownership could
   pass it outside a will, and who could manage it if I could not.
3. Describe in general terms what can go wrong when there is no plan: delays,
   disputes, assets reaching people I would not have chosen, and debts that
   still have to be settled.
4. List the questions that depend on the law where I live, phrased so I can ask
   a local lawyer, notary or tax adviser. Do not state my country's inheritance,
   family or tax rules as fact.
5. Suggest three first steps I can take this month without a professional, such
   as a list of accounts and contacts for my family.

If a figure or ownership detail is missing, ask me rather than assuming it. Do
not recommend specific products, providers or legal structures for me.

What good output looks like

A good answer starts with one short paragraph per term. A will says who receives what. A power of attorney names someone to act for you while you are alive but unable to. A healthcare directive records your medical wishes. Beneficiary nominations on pensions and life insurance can pay out outside the will, depending on the contract and the country. Probate is the process that confirms a will and settles an estate. The model should add that trusts and probate work differently, or hardly exist, in some legal systems.

The walk through your snapshot comes next. Say you listed a flat worth €240,000 with a €90,000 mortgage, a brokerage account worth $33,000 (€30,000 at an example rate of $1.10 per euro) and €12,000 in savings. The model should put your net estate at €192,000 before costs (240,000 plus 30,000 plus 12,000, minus 90,000). It should then note that the mortgage still has to be repaid or taken over, and ask whether the flat is in your name alone, because joint ownership can change what a will controls.

The section on having no plan stays general and quotes no country's default rules. The local questions are specific enough to bring to an appointment, for example whether a will made in another country is valid where you live now. The three first steps need no lawyer.

What this can't tell you

The model does not know your country's inheritance law reliably, and it can sound confident when it is wrong. Who inherits without a will, protected shares for close family, the formal rules for a valid will and any inheritance or gift tax all differ between countries and change over time. Treat every legal point in the answer as a question for a local lawyer or notary, and take tax points to a tax adviser.

It sees only the balances you paste. It cannot read the nominations on your pension or insurance, the ownership on property records, or what an existing will says. The estate figure leaves out funeral costs, taxes and fees, so check the arithmetic and treat it as a rough figure. None of this replaces a will drafted with a professional.

Doing this without the retyping

In Sumio, this prompt is one of the 62 built into the app, under the name "Estate Planning Introduction". It runs on your whole balance sheet, using the assets and debts you already track there, so there is no snapshot to rebuild when a balance changes. Your records are stored on your device. When you run the analysis, the figures it needs are sent to an AI provider to produce the answer. The AI assistant is part of Sumio Premium.