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The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History is Underway – Here’s How to Play Your Part

Lucere Legal helps families transfer wealth to the next generation with estate planning
Categories: Estate Planning

How much wealth will be passed on over the next fifty-some years? The Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy has recently released new  research revealing a remarkable transfer of wealth, potentially greater than the sum of all that transferred throughout American history before. Heirs, charities, and the government will receive from estates a combined total of more than $59 trillion by 2061. That’s unheard of!

Whether through final estate bequest or total lifetime gifts, heirs will benefit from the largest chunk of this wealth–$36 trillion–while charitable organizations receive the still grand amount of $27 trillion.

Most interestingly, that transfer of $59 trillion, already larger than any in history, is a conservative estimate. As time horizons lengthen, the precision of the data lessens–future Americans may be looking at an over $10-trillion-dollar margin of error in their favor.

Will your carefully accumulated wealth be in this grand pool? What plans have you made for either passing on or receiving inherited wealth?

As an estate planning lawyer, I know all too well that too many have hardly given their estate a second thought–some people only turn to a professional after reality has struck them and their families a hard blow. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so I encourage families not to put off their planning for tomorrow. And remember, your estate plan isn’t a mere static document; as your circumstances change, your planning documents may quickly become obsolete.

My relationship with my clients continues well after the papers have been signed. You deserve the security that comes in knowing that your wishes will be followed. The dynamic legacy planning we put in place will give you ample control over the transfer of your wealth to future generations. I make sure you have electronic access to all your estate planning files, and offer a free review session every three years to help you with these three vital aspects of your plan:

  1. Your family won’t get caught up in an inescapable web of expensive, unnecessary, and public court processes if you have given proper attention to transferring ownership of your assets into your trust. One cannot simply establish a trust and go on one’s merry way; it requires proper funding to be valid and any probatable assets left out of the trust are subject to court process, defeating one of the main purposes of trust planning. It’s good to have regular oversight of your trust to match up to the changing character of your assets and your family.
  2. Your greatest treasure isn’t money  – it’s your family and your health, and that treasure needs even more thoughtful attention. Guardians, both emergency and permanent, need to be selected to care for your minor children, and responsible trustees need to be appointed to maintain the security of your family’s inheritance. And, of course, you need to choose who you want to make your health care decisions should you not be capable of making them yourself. More importantly, your selection for all these individuals should be changed as time goes by and life changes – an appropriate choice at one point in time may not be the best choice a few years later.
  3. Likewise, your most valuable gift isn’t money.  Your values, experiences, family history, and all the other indispensable intangibles that make up who you are as a person are what your family values the most, and those need not be lost to them after you’re gone. We help you leave that gift for your family. Today’s technology offers an opportunity like never before to reach out to the family you have now and the generations yet to come. I focus on what matters most–your values you hold, the stories you tell, the experiences you’ve been through–your death doesn’t need to be an end to these. Your messages to your loved ones may change or be added to as time goes by.

Call our office today at (612) 206-3701 or fill out our contact form to schedule a time for us to sit down and have a family estate planning consultation, where we can help you look at what would happen now if something were to happen to you and ensure everything passes to your loved ones in the way you want.

Photo by Shopify Partners from Burst

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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.

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