Estate attorney Mary Beth Fanelli has a picture for what happens to the person who has to settle your affairs without information. In Leaving a Legacy of Love, she describes the executor who "drifts on the ocean with no...
Estate attorney Mary Beth Fanelli has a picture for what happens to the person who has to settle your affairs without information. In Leaving a Legacy of Love, she describes the executor who "drifts on the ocean with no compass." They know a will exists somewhere, maybe. They do not know which bank, which policy, which drawer, which password. So they drift, for months, while bills go unpaid, accounts freeze, and relatives fill the silence with their own versions of what you wanted.
The fix is one file. Call it the Compass File: a single place holding every piece of information your family would need in the first ninety days after your death. It takes about an hour to start. This article gives you the full checklist, written for Uganda first, with a note for readers elsewhere: the structure is universal, only the document names change. Swap land titles for property deeds and NSSF for your national pension scheme, and everything below still applies.
Financial planning voices like Suren Adams put the stakes bluntly: if you do not name people in writing, "the loudest, bossiest family member" decides. Not the wisest one. Not the one you trusted. The loudest one. Every blank you leave in this file is a decision you are handing to whoever shouts first at the burial.
And in Uganda there is a technical trap inside that warning that most people have never been told. The next-of-kin and nominated-beneficiary records sitting on your NSSF account, your SACCO, your bank accounts, your mobile money lines, and your insurance policies are not decoration. For those specific assets, the nominated beneficiary on file typically outranks the will. NSSF pays the person you nominated on their forms. Your insurer pays the named beneficiary on the policy. If you married, had children, and never updated a nomination form you filled in as a single 24-year-old, your will cannot fix that. The institution's own record wins.
So the Compass File is not only a list. Building it forces you to audit records that quietly override your will.
Do these before anything else. They are the items that cause the worst disputes here.
Land titles. Photocopy every title. Note the physical location of each original, the plot and block numbers, and whether the land is titled, kibanja, or held under customary tenure. Untitled land is where succession fights turn ugliest, so if any family land has no title, write down exactly who the recognized owners and witnesses are.
LC1 letters and identity documents. Your National ID, and know that your family will need LC1 letters of introduction for nearly every process that follows a death: banks, URSB, courts, NSSF. List your LC1 chairperson's name and phone number in the file.
Marriage certificate. A surviving spouse without a marriage certificate can spend years proving a marriage everyone attended. If you married under customary law, document it: photos, witnesses, the introduction ceremony record. Put copies in the file.
Guardianship deed. If you have children under 18, name their guardian in a written, witnessed deed, and confirm the person has agreed. Do not let a clan meeting decide who raises your children.
Burial wishes, in writing. Burial-site disputes are one of the major sources of family conflict in Uganda: the body contested between the ancestral village and the family's current home, clans and in-laws fighting while the deceased waits in a mortuary. One signed paragraph stating where you wish to be buried, and who decides the arrangements, removes the single most explosive question of the funeral week.
The nomination audit. List every institution holding a next-of-kin or beneficiary record for you: NSSF, each SACCO, each bank, each registered mobile money line, each insurance policy. Beside each, write the name currently on file and the date you last updated it. If any name is wrong, updating it goes to the top of your task list, because as covered above, these records outrank the will.
These apply in Kampala, London, or Nairobi alike.
Contacts. The ten calls your family must make: lawyer, banker, insurance agent, employer or business partner, pastor or imam, LC1 chairperson, landlord or tenants, accountant, doctor, and the one relative who keeps everyone calm.
Passwords and PINs. Phone unlock code, mobile money PINs, email, banking apps. Your phone is the gateway to almost everything else, and a locked phone can stall an entire estate. Store these securely, but store them.
Account numbers. Every bank account, mobile money line, SACCO membership, investment, and debt. Include what you owe, not only what you own. Surprise debts poison grief.
Insurance policies. Insurer, policy number, agent's phone number, and the named beneficiary for each. Unclaimed policies are common for one reason: nobody knew they existed.
Safe location and contents. If you keep a safe, lockbox, or a drawer of documents, say where it is, what is in it, and where the key or code lives.
Prepaid funeral wishes. Anything already arranged or paid for: funeral policy, burial society membership, the budget you consider reasonable. Families overspend wildly on funerals partly because no one wrote down what the deceased actually wanted.
Pets and dependents plan. Who takes the dog, the cattle, the elderly aunt who lives with you. Name the person, confirm they agree.
` THE COMPASS FILE: [Your name], updated [date]
UGANDA-SPECIFIC [ ] Land titles: copies made, originals' location noted, tenure type listed [ ] LC1 letters: chairperson name + phone recorded [ ] Marriage certificate copy in file (or customary marriage evidence) [ ] Guardianship deed for minor children, signed and witnessed [ ] Burial wishes written, signed, dated [ ] Next-of-kin/beneficiary audit done: NSSF, SACCOs, banks, mobile money, insurance (these OUTRANK the will, check the names)
UNIVERSAL [ ] Key contacts list (10 names + phone numbers) [ ] Passwords + PINs stored securely, access explained [ ] All account numbers listed (assets AND debts) [ ] Insurance policies: insurer, number, agent, beneficiary [ ] Safe/lockbox location, contents, key or code [ ] Funeral wishes + anything prepaid [ ] Pets and dependents: named person, agreement confirmed
FILE ADMIN [ ] Two trusted people know this file exists and where it is [ ] Next quarterly review date set: [date] `
A Compass File on loose paper in a drawer is better than nothing, but barely. Papers burn, flood, and get "tidied" by relatives. Keep the physical originals in one named place, and keep scanned copies somewhere permanent and shareable. The Documents module in LegacyPot exists for exactly this: one vault for the titles, certificates, policies, and wishes, with the people you choose able to reach it when it matters.
Then maintain it. One hour to start, then a quarterly appointment with yourself: fifteen minutes to update balances, confirm the beneficiary names still match your life, and re-date the file. Set the recurring reminder now, because a Compass File last updated six years ago can mislead as badly as no file at all.
Book one hour this week. Start with the two highest-stakes items: write your burial wishes and sign them, then call or visit NSSF and your bank to confirm whose names sit on your nomination forms. Those two steps alone defuse the worst fights your family could face.
Then work down the checklist. You are not preparing to die. You are refusing to let the loudest voice in the room write your ending for you.