Strategies To Avoid Relatives Fighting Over Your Estate Plan

It often happens that when people sit down to do their estate plan, they may want to leave more property to some beneficiaries or family members than others. When family gets more than friends, that isn’t usually a problem, but it often does become a problem when some family members are receiving more through your estate plan than other family members.

While you can never guarantee that there won’t be hostility or infighting between family when they learn that some family members received more than they did, there are things that you can do to avoid the problem.

Plan Early

Timing is key—the first thing someone will say when they are left less than they thought they would get, is that you didn’t know what you were doing, or that you were older and confused, or that you had some mental disability that led to you not understanding what you were doing.

Getting your estate plan done early, when you are younger, and presumably, healthier, can ward off this challenge

Do It When You’re Around

You can use trusts to distribute property while you are still alive—even if the beneficiaries of those trusts don’t receive the property right away. By establishing an estate plan and trusts while you are still around, you are here to address concerns, or family squabbles, and you can answer questions and concerns brought up by family who received less than what they thought.

Transfer Outside Your Estate

If there is property that you don’t need, and which you can transfer while you are still around, that also may be a good strategy. For example, you can start training a family member to run your business, and sell him or her your shares in the business now, eliminating the need to pass these things on to that family member when you pass through your estate plan.

Conditional Gifts

You can also use trusts to establish conditional gifts, or gifts that only vest upon a given occurrence.

So, a family member may only get his or her part of your state, if and when they graduate college, or have kids, or enter into a rehab program, or finish community service projects, or reach some other life milestone. This way, the family member doesn’t feel like he or she has been left less than another family member—it’s just that their part of the estate is conditional, and harder to get.

Leaving a Letter

You can, along with the rest of your estate plan, leave a letter that explains the whys and wherefores of your estate plan. It can explain why you left what you did, to the person that you left the property to.

Although it may be difficult for family members to hear or read why they are being left less than what they wanted to, it may reduce fighting between the family members themselves, who now know because of the letter that it was you who made the decision to leave property the way you did.

Call the Torrance probate will and estate attorneys at Samuel Ford Law today to create an estate plan that works for you and for all of your family members.

Sources:

trustandwill.com/learn/letter-of-instruction

investopedia.com/terms/i/incentivetrust.asp