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by Allen Unrau
Should each child get an equal share? Does your estate plan provide for equal or equitable distributions? (They are not necessarily the same.)
Have you thought through the right way and the wrong way of leaving money and property to your children? Estate planning should deal with relationships as well as $ dollars.
Do you believe that you must automatically divide your property equally among your children? There may be good reasons to divide the property unequally.
Some families face interesting situations:
- Mary feels that some of her children are less deserving than others…period.
- Wendy gave up her nursing career to care for her ailing parents in their home.
- Robert and Dorothy’s son Nathan is very needy and has taken a lot more of their time than his siblings.
- James has already received a good portion of his share of the inheritance through a forgivable loan his parents gave him to buy his first home.
- Tim and his brother Brian have contributed greatly to the success of their parents’ business while their two sisters moved out of the area years ago and only come home for visits.
- Jack and Mabel are very worried about giving a large sum of money to their daughter Amber as part of her inheritance because of her history of making poor choices when it comes to marriage partners. They don’t want all their hard work to go down the drain at the hands of someone they don’t know or approve of.
Don’t keep your estate plans a secret. Surprising your heirs can backfire. Take the time to discuss your plans and reasons with your family.
How can you make sure your estate plan addresses your wishes and doesn’t cause hard feelings and disagreements among your heirs The simplest answer is…
Communicate in advance. The thought of a family meeting to discuss your will may be unpleasant, but if you don’t share your feelings now, they may be inheriting turmoil. An important part of estate planning is figuring out what money and material possessions mean to you and your children and what their expectations are. Open communication about your will gives you the ability to explain any apparent inequalities and give your children a chance to express their thoughts and feelings and establish a plan that is really “fair to all.”
Communicate now to avoid putting someone in the embarrassing position of trying to explain your actions after you are gone. Don’t leave your family confused, unprepared and destined for resentment. Family members will embrace an estate plan they were involved in creating. Wealth should be the glue that binds the family together, not the dynamite that blows it apart.
Passing money and property to children means different things to different parents. It’s important for you to realize that talking openly with your adult children doesn’t mean that they have the right to dictate what you do. Your assets are from a lifetime of hard work and dedication and you must decide how to disperse them, but open discussion with family will help you to decide in a more informed and sensitive manner.
Don’t disinherit if you can possibly avoid it. Even when a child is a miserable rotten disgrace to the family, it may not make sense to cut them out of the will completely. It is wiser to leave that child a token amount. Future generations won’t have to deal with the bitterness.
Estate planning is a process, not a one time event. Review your will regularly, about every two years. Family situations change and your will needs to reflect these changes.
The simplest advice for you when preparing your will is communicate, communicate, communicate.
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Need advice? Ask us.
Allen Unrau is a writer on "reallife" seniors issues and is actively involved as a volunteer with numerous seniors' organizations. He is a grandfather of eight and works as a licensed realtor specializing in seniors Real Estate by helping seniors and their families purchase or sell homes in the Fraser Valley, British Columbia.