The goal of any good estate plan is to preserve family harmony. This means making decisions that will last the test of time, having a document flexible enough to allow a successor trustee and an adult beneficiary to make smart tax and asset protection choices, and taking personal relationships and personalities into consideration when assigning roles and naming beneficiaries. The goal is always to die in your sleep, at a ripe old age, holding the hand of the person you love the most (who is also at a ripe old age), clutching your last poker chip. But life doesn’t always provide a happy ending. Planning for the unexpected and the inevitable is incumbent on all of us to avoid chaos and anxiety.
Planning With an Aim Towards Building Unity
A will or trust contest can wreak havoc on families. The conflict can result in possibly irreparable resentment and loss of familial communication. Old rivalries and disputes can resurface during the trying time that occurs after the death of a loved one, especially a parent. However, careful estate planning can help you substantially reduce the risk or even avoid this problem entirely. Let’s look at a few ways you can build your estate plan to minimize family conflicts after you’re gone.
- Keep your plan up-to-date: An up-to-date estate plan can help you preserve family unity after death or in incapacity. Even if you have put an estate plan in place in recent years, estate planning is an ongoing process and needs attention at regular intervals. An out-of-date plan can become misaligned with your goals, new laws, and policies, rendering it less effective and more likely to generate conflict (the last thing you want.
- Select key individuals in your plan: You can give certainty to your family and make your wishes easier to carry out by selecting the right people as your key players in carrying out your estate plan. Ensure you’ve thoughtfully selected the right people to carry out your estate plan. A few of the key individuals you’ll have to select:
- Successor trustee – This person will manage your trust’s assets when you are unable to do so.
- Executor – This person is appointed in your will to manage your probate estate if one is needed. You may often select the same person as your successor trustee. However, if you don’t, remember that your executor must work closely with your successor trustee to ensure that everything is handled smoothly and in a timely fashion.
- Health care proxy – This person is authorized to communicate with your medical providers and make medical decisions if you cannot do so.
- Financial agent – This person is authorized to make financial decisions on your behalf. They will likely need to work closely with your successor trustee, or you may designate the same person to serve in both roles.
- Share your wisdom: By sharing your stories and wisdom (through ethical wills, intent letters, personal stories, videos, etc.), you can help your family understand the legacy you want to leave so that the wealth you’re leaving doesn’t become a distraction or point of contention.
- Don’t try to DIY: While cutting corners and taking your estate plan into your own hands might be tempting, taking a do-it-yourself approach is never wise. This sets the stage for potentially inadequate planning, which increases the likelihood of will or trust contests and will likely mean your estate isn’t distributed how you’d like it to be in the end. Let your estate planning attorney do the heavy lifting —we’re always here to help.
- Be clear about your intentions: Are you planning on giving more of your total assets to one child than the others? Or are there other ways in which your estate planning goals may upset some of your beneficiaries (or those who aren’t beneficiaries)? It can be a very tricky subject to broach, but if you foresee hurt feelings, consider being as clear as possible about your wealth distribution plans with those individuals. This will limit the potential for confusion and disagreement down the road. It may – or may not – make sense to explain this to your family. But it’s always incredibly important to let us know the reasons so we can develop a rock-solid legal strategy for your goals.
- Consider discretionary trusts: If you have a child or other potential beneficiary who struggles with addiction, mental health problems, or other conditions that could hinder their ability to use their inheritance in a healthy way, you might want to consider a discretionary trust. With this type of trust, you can control the disbursements based on your beneficiary meeting certain requirements —such as attending a treatment program or enrolling in higher education. This can help you treat each child fairly by considering what is best for each child’s unique situation.
Will or trust contests can tear a family apart and can also be time-consuming, costly, and embarrassing for the family that remains. If someone who feels slighted by your estate plan can convince the court that your will or trust is invalid, chaos can break loose, and your intended beneficiaries can lose their inheritances. Typical reasons a family member might use to say your estate plan is invalid are that it wasn’t signed, you didn’t have the capacity to make the estate planning decisions you made, the documents were fraudulent, or you were pressured or influenced to sign documents. Let us help you make sure that none of these events unfold.
