What is your name? When were you born? Really?

            I had an interesting conversation with a friend last week.  The friend’s mother had died last year and, as the only child, my friend was charged with handling mother’s estate.  My friend’s mother was 93 years old and six years younger than her husband.  The importance of that last bit of information will become apparent soon.

            When handling the estate of a deceased person, you have to deal with all sorts of folks.  You may have to deal with Social Security, banks, stock brokerage houses, and those involved in the sale or purchase of real estate or businesses.  How easy that is will depend upon, partly, the extent to which the deceased person organized his or her affairs.

            The first problem that my friend encountered was that her mother had used quite a few different names over the years.  Sometimes she used her married name and sometimes she used her maiden name.  Sometimes she used her given name and sometimes she used a nickname.  In at least one case, the mother had used a name that she apparently just invented for the purpose, probably because it went well with her given name.  In all, my friend was able to find nine official documents to use to prove her mother’s death.  Unfortunately the mother’s name was never the same in more than two of them.  My friend found it very difficult even to prove her mother’s death to Social Security since they required three matching documents. 

            As problematic as the name situation was, my friend’s mother’s birth dates were possibly even more so.  Although she was born in 1918, she had listed her date of birth on various governmental documents as anywhere from 1918 to 1924.  It appears that she is trying to “move” her age to be the same as her husband, who, as I said earlier, was six years her junior.  Since many government agencies use a birth date to confirm a persons’ identity, this created as many problems as the multiple names.

            This does not even consider that it is a crime, frequently a felony, to give improper information to a governmental agency.  Let’s assume, just as an example, that someone with this number of names and this number of birth dates was suspected in a crime that they did not commit.  In the process of the investigation that will ultimately clear them of the crime, both the police and the prosecutors will become aware of the multiple “aliases” and birth dates.  Since giving incorrect information to a governmental agency is often a felony, the person who did not commit the first crime could possibly be charged with several other crimes which carry long prison sentences. 

            Are your governmental records consistent?  Most people, myself included, might enter a name that is your given name in some documents and a nickname in others.  Although "Robert" is my given name, I frequently use "Bob" in documents that I fill out.  That is understandable and almost anyone will quickly see that "Bob" is a traditional nickname for "Robert" and therefore it should present no problem.  If, however, I were to somehow inexplicably use "James," that would certainly raise eyebrows.  If I use more than one birth date, that would create even bigger issues. 

            Now would be a good time to look at how you are listed in various government documents and, if there is a problem, do what it takes to resolve it. Bob Leonard Law Group, PLLC