Business Interests, Liens, and Loans: The Assets and Debts People Forget

Because nothing else surfaces them. An ownership stake in an LLC, a partnership, minority stock in a private company, or a private equity investment doesn't arrive in the mail with a monthly balance the way a bank account does. Without documentation, your family — or whoever's handling your estate — may not know it exists, may not know what it's worth, and may not know where the actual agreement even lives.

This is also one of the more complicated items to fund into a trust — it often takes an amendment to an operating agreement or an updated ownership ledger rather than a simple retitling, so it's worth flagging to your attorney specifically.

• The company or entity name
• What kind of interest it is — LLC, partnership, minority stock, private equity
• Your ownership percentage
• An estimated value
• Where the operating agreement, partnership agreement, or stock documentation actually lives

A tax lien is a legal claim a government agency has placed against your property for unpaid taxes. It doesn't disappear when you die, and if it's still attached to a property, it can complicate or stall that property's transfer. Worth documenting clearly: what the lien is for, the amount, and which agency holds it, so this isn't something your personal representative discovers by surprise during a title search.

Personal loans you've made, or money someone owes you, are assets too — but they're invisible unless you write them down. Without documentation, that money is easy to lose track of entirely: your family may not know to collect it, and the person who owes it has little incentive to bring it up. Worth recording who owes what, whether there's a written agreement, and where any related paperwork lives.

Under Assets > Other Assets & Liabilities, business interests go under the Business Interests tab — company name, ownership percentage, estimated value, and supporting documents. Tax liens and similar claims fit under Key Liabilities. Personal loans, in either direction, fit under Loans.

No — and this is worth knowing, because it removes a real hesitation people have. Under People, you can add a business partner, an accountant, or the person who owes you money as a contact — name, relationship, phone, email — without granting them any access to The Folder at all. The value isn't giving these people access. It's making sure whoever is handling your estate can actually reach them, instead of starting from a name with no way to make contact.