What Really Happens When You Die? 

Wealth management is rarely spooky, beyond perhaps the tax regimes of some countries. But with Halloween just around the corner what better time to tackle one of life’s most supernatural questions: What happens after you die?

For family offices, the better question may be: How do you ensure the 
long term stability of the family’s wealth and legacy in the instance of a principal’s death? For many this event causes untold problems for the surviving family members, but with thoughtful preparation around the estate and taxes, entity and asset ownership, and succession, the next steps can be planned out well ahead of time to avoid unforeseen consequences and limit fallout.

Kerri Scott, COO of Mt. Vernon Investments, is a strong advocate of pre-planning. She recommends that all families carry out an exercise that she refers to as a death audit: “A simulation, from an estate tax and asset transfer perspective, for the event of the death of a patriarch or matriarch,” as she wrote in The International Family Offices Journal in May 2024, where she spelled out in very specific terms all of the necessary steps families need to take.

Scott helps to manage the-Dallas based family office of self-made billionaire entrepreneur Kenny Troutt. Scott is responsible for income tax and tax strategies, as well as wealth preservation strategies like governance and succession planning across three generations of the family.

As spelled out in her 2024 article, there is a mountain of documentation to be completed after death to establish estate planning, asset transfer, and taxes. These documents tend to be put into place in a piecemeal fashion over time, often over a period of many years. The death audit is essentially making sure that everything is in order and there’s a concrete plan in place.