Letter of instruction: what it is and what to put in it
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Three days after her father's funeral, Priya sat at his desk with a legal pad and a growing list of questions nobody could answer. Did he have life insurance through his old job? Which bank was the mortgage with? Who was "Carl," the name scribbled on a sticky note with a phone number and the word "boat"? Her dad had a will, and it was a good one. It just didn't tell her any of the things she needed to know that week.
That gap is what a letter of instruction is for. It's a plain, informal document that sits alongside your will and tells your family the practical stuff: where your accounts are, who to call, what you want done with the dog, and which drawer the car title is in. This guide covers what a letter of instruction is, how it differs from your legal documents, what to put in it, and how to keep it useful over time. It isn't legal advice, and for anything that needs to be binding, talk to an estate attorney.
What is a letter of instruction?
A letter of instruction is a non-legal document that gives your executor and family the information and guidance they'll need after you die. It has no legal force on its own. It works more like a user manual for your estate.
Your will answers the "who gets what" question. A letter of instruction answers the hundred smaller questions that come up on the way there. Which credit cards need to be canceled. Whether you'd prefer burial or cremation. The name of the accountant who's done your taxes since 2009. Where the spare key to the storage unit lives.
Some people call it a "letter of last instruction," a "letter of wishes," or simply a "final instructions letter." The names overlap and none of them have a strict legal definition, so don't worry too much about the label. What matters is that someone you trust can pick it up and know what to do next.
How it fits with your will and other documents
The easiest way to think about it: legal documents set the rules, and a letter of instruction explains how to follow them.
If you have a will, it names your executor and directs your property. If you have a living trust, it does something similar for whatever assets are titled in the trust's name. (If you're still deciding between the two, our guide on will vs trust walks through the differences.) Neither document is a good place for a list of your utility accounts or your login for the county property tax site. Wills become public record once they're filed in probate, and changing one means a formal amendment with witnesses.
A letter of instruction avoids both problems. It stays private, and you can rewrite it on a Tuesday night with a pen. The trade-off is that it can't do anything legally binding. If your letter says your niece should get the piano but your will leaves "all household furnishings" to your son, the will wins. So use the letter to clarify and inform, and put anything you need enforced into the legal documents.
It also helps to know what an executor is actually up against. They file papers with the probate court, find and value assets, notify creditors, pay final bills, and distribute property, often over six months to a year or more. Our explainer on what probate is and how long it takes lays out that process step by step. Almost every step goes faster when someone has left a map.
What to include in a letter of instruction
A useful letter of instruction covers two kinds of information: the facts your family can't easily find, and the wishes they'd otherwise have to guess at. You don't need to include everything below. Pick what applies and skip the rest.
People to contact
Start with names and phone numbers. Your executor will need them in the first week.
- Your estate attorney, accountant, and financial advisor
- Your insurance agent or the HR contact at your employer (or former employer, if you have a pension or retiree benefits)
- Your doctors, if there are medical bills or records to sort out
- Close friends or community members who should hear the news personally rather than through social media
- Anyone like Priya's mysterious Carl, with a note explaining who they are
Where things are
This is the section families thank you for. List the physical location of your original will, trust documents, deeds, car titles, birth and marriage certificates, military discharge papers, and any safe deposit box (plus where the key is and who's authorized to open it). If you keep things in a fireproof box at home, say which closet.
Financial accounts and debts
List each bank, brokerage, and retirement account by institution and type. You don't need full account numbers in a document several people might see; the last four digits and the institution name are usually enough for an executor to track it down. Do the same for debts: mortgage, car loans, credit cards, and anything you've co-signed. Note recurring bills that are on autopay, since those keep charging until someone stops them.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's guides for people managing someone else's money are worth a look here. They're written for the person on the receiving end of this job, which makes them a good check on what your executor will be looking for.
Taxes
Your executor may have to file a final income tax return for you, and sometimes a return for the estate. Say who prepares your taxes, where the last few years of returns are kept, and whether you have any unusual situations like rental income or estimated payments. The IRS has a plain page on filing the final returns of a deceased taxpayer if you want to see what that involves.
Digital life
Note which email accounts, phones, and computers you use, how to get into them, and which password manager (if any) holds the rest. Mention any accounts that hold money or memories, such as PayPal, a crypto wallet, or the cloud folder with twenty years of family photos. Say what you'd like done with social media profiles: memorialized, deleted, or left alone.
Final arrangements and personal wishes
Write down whether you've prepaid anything with a funeral home, whether you'd prefer burial or cremation, and any preferences about the service. Then the softer requests. Who should take the cat. That you'd like your fishing gear to go to the kid down the street who always asked about it. That you'd rather people donate to the library than send flowers.
A simple letter of instruction template
If a blank page feels like too much, borrow this structure and fill it in a section at a time.
To my executor and family
This letter is meant to help you handle my affairs. It isn't a legal document. My will is located at [place], and my attorney is [name, phone].
Call these people first: [names, relationships, phone numbers]
Important documents are kept: [location of will, trust, deeds, titles, certificates, safe deposit box and key]
My accounts: [institution, account type, last four digits]
My debts and autopay bills: [lender or company, what it's for]
Taxes: [preparer's name, where past returns are kept]
Digital accounts: [devices, password manager, wishes for social media]
Final arrangements: [funeral home, preferences, any prepaid plans]
Personal requests: [pets, sentimental items, anything else]
Updated on: [date]
That last line is easy to skip, so don't. A date tells your executor how much to trust the details.
Writing it so someone else can use it
The person reading your letter will likely be tired, grieving, and short on time. Write for that person.
Plain sentences work better than shorthand. "Checking at Chase, ends in 4471, bills come out of this one" is far more helpful than "Chase chk." If something is complicated, explain it the way you'd explain it to a smart friend who's never seen your finances. My neighbor Walt did this for his wife after a health scare. He had always handled the money, and she'd never once logged into their accounts. His letter ended up being nine handwritten pages, and the part she said helped most was a short paragraph explaining which bills were annual, so she wouldn't panic when the homeowner's insurance came due in March.
It's also worth thinking about who will actually be reading it. If you've named a sibling or a grown child as executor, they may not know the people in your life the way your spouse does. If you haven't chosen yet, our guide on how to choose an executor covers what to consider, and whoever you pick should know this letter exists.
Some people keep their letter of instruction inside a larger death binder with copies of key documents. That works well if you like having everything in one physical place. Just make sure more than one person knows where the binder is.
Keeping it current and findable
A letter of instruction only helps if your family can find it and the information is still accurate. Both of those take a little ongoing attention.
Pick one regular moment to review it. Some people do it at tax time, since the financial details are already on their mind. Others use a birthday. Change anything that's out of date, add the new account you opened, cross out the doctor who retired, and update the date at the bottom. Fifteen minutes a year is usually plenty.
For storage, keep the original with your will or estate documents and tell your executor where it is. A copy with a spouse or adult child is a good backup. Be careful with safe deposit boxes, since some banks restrict access until an executor has been formally appointed, which can take weeks. And avoid writing full passwords in a paper letter that multiple people can read. Point to your password manager instead, or to an encrypted place where the credentials are kept. The American Bar Association's estate planning resources also cover how a letter like this fits with your formal documents, if you want a lawyer's view before you start.
The part that isn't on any checklist
A lot of letters of instruction stop at the bill list. Priya's father, it turned out, had started one. She found it a month later, folded inside his tax folder: two pages, half-finished, mostly account names. But at the bottom he'd added a line that had nothing to do with banks. "The boat is Carl's if he wants it. He helped me fix it every summer and never let me pay him."
She said that one sentence did more for her than the rest of the page. It answered the sticky note, and it told her something about her dad she hadn't known.
You can leave room for that kind of thing in your own letter. A few lines about why you made a certain choice, or a note to the person who'll be doing all this work, can make the job feel less lonely. If you'd like a place to keep the practical list and those more personal notes together, When I Die Files lets you write both and decide who receives them, so your executor gets the instructions and your kids get the letters you meant for them. Start with whatever's easiest. A list of five phone numbers is a perfectly good first draft.