(612) 206-3701 info@lucerelegal.com

How to Avoid Family Conflict When Creating Your Estate Plan

Lucere Legal helps families through the estate planning process
Categories: Estate Planning

Sometimes money has a habit of bringing out the worst in people, even in the best of families.  One of the most important reasons to get your Minnesota estate plan handled is to keep your family out of conflict.  However, without the right counsel, your estate plan could actually cause conflict!

Here’s what to do to make sure that doesn’t happen with your family:

Get Help Communicating Your Plans.  At times, parents share their estate planning choices with their adult children and the reaction is not what they expect. It can be a delicate conversation, and it can be helpful to have someone facilitating the discussion. This can be a difficult conversation for you to have on your own and it is one we are extremely skilled at handling.  In our office, we recommend inviting adult children into the planning process and letting them know ahead of time why you have made the decisions you have made.  We don’t recommend doing it without the guidance of trusted counsel.

Do Not Put One Sibling In Charge of Another Sibling’s Inheritance.  Unless there are very compelling circumstances or it is agreed to ahead of time by both siblings, putting one sibling in charge of another will almost always lead to anger and resentment.  You can circumvent this with good communication and agreement ahead of time. Or, better yet, you can appoint someone else to care for your child’s inheritance. We can help you think that through, so call us if a child in your family will need inheritance protection.

Transfer Some Now Instead of All Later.  Consider how you can begin to transfer assets to your children during your lifetime, when you can influence how they use those assets. At the same time, you can pass on your values right along with them, instead of waiting until you are gone to pass on everything you’ve worked so hard for.

Make Changes When Necessary.  Estate planning is a dynamic process, and when changes occur in your life – like the divorce of a child or the birth of a new grandchild – your plan needs to change as well.

Pass On More Than Just Your Money.  Most estate plans focus only on your stuff, but your most valuable assets are your values, insights, stories and experience. We have a unique process for helping you to pass on these assets, which most often are lost when someone dies. They are what will keep your family focused on what really matters after you are gone.

Choose the right advisor.  Developing a strong working relationship with a Personal Family Lawyer® that will give you the freedom to candidly discuss your family dynamics, plan accordingly and keep the family involved every step of the way.

If you would like to create or update your estate plan, call our office at (612) 206-3701 or fill out our contact form today to schedule a time for us to sit down and talk.

Image courtesy of Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Contact us to see how we can help you with Estate Planning

You may also like . . .

The Risks of Poor Man’s Estate Planning: 10 Common Mistakes

With my years of experience as an attorney, I have seen plenty of families left to sort things out for themselves because their parents either failed to plan their estate or turned to the siren song of the new, “do-it-yourself” estate planning websites in a misguided...

It’s Time You Got an Agent

You need an agent. No matter the nature of your unique talent and whether or not you have a particularly telegenic personality, your agent will be there to protect your interests and desires even after you’ve passed. What, did you think I meant the Hollywood type?...

The Tragic Family Fight Over the Property of Funnyman Robin Williams

The passing of beloved comedian Robin Williams shocked the world, but the latest tragedy that has followed in its wake was all too predictable. Mr. Williams left behind three children from two different marriages, Zak, Zelda, and Cody, from his first two marriages and...

The plain-English guide for Minnesota small business owners

When it comes to business, ignorance isn't bliss; ignorance is risk.

There's a handful of legal topics that business owners should be familiar with, at least on a rudimentary level, to reduce the risk of having something horrible come out of left field.

This book is a legal guide to help you put the most common business legal issues on your radar, with enough information for you to be on the alert for when you may need to get some professional advice.

The intention in arming you with this information is so that you can proceed in business confidently and with fewer legal quagmires.

Do you have a cabin?

The first generation that buys a cabin enjoys it to the fullest and it’s a magical place where happy memories are made and families go for some much needed respite. Unfortunately, without thoughtful planning, the chances of the cabin staying a place of happiness and tranquility into successive generations is very, very slim.

If you haven’t done the planning in advance and made it legally binding, the family members (and their ex-spouses and new spouses) will have to work every detail out for themselves. If they can’t, what is likely to happen is a lawsuit called an action for partition that forces everyone to sell their interest. This lawsuit is expensive, and the costs of litigation will come out of the proceeds of the sale of the cabin, so to add insult to injury to those who wanted to keep the cabin but couldn’t afford to buy the others out, they are footing part of the legal bills in the lawsuit against them. Ouch!

It’s no wonder that family members stop speaking for years after the cabin conflict is “resolved.” You can’t make family relationships perfect, but you can take away much of the fuel for the family conflict fire. That’s what cabin planning does, and it has the nice side effect of giving you peace of mind now.

That’s why Kimberly wrote The Minnesota Cabin Planning Guide and Workbook, and you can get a free electronic copy of her book on our cabin planning website, or you can find it in many county libraries in Minnesota, or you can get it on amazon.com.

Make An Appointment>

Join Our Mailing List

Subscribe to our newsletter list to get information and resources helpful to running your business and planning and managing your personal financial affairs delivered right to your inbox.

We don’t spam and won’t share your information with anyone, at anytime, ever.

Check out our podcast

The Small Business Buzz Podcast