Times have changed! We are no longer the June and Ward Cleaver family where everybody gets along, family members don’t fight with each other (especially over money) and everyone sits down together for dinner every night and openly discusses things. Why is this conversation relevant to the estate planning world? Because when it comes to setting up your estate plan these are important factors to consider. Do your children get along? Are there money issues within your children’s lives? Lack of money or love of money? Do you still like all your children?
When it comes to setting up your estate plan, you want to make sure that you have nominated the right person to oversee your finances upon your incapacity and/or death. You want to make sure that if you have a problem child they are not going to create problems for the rest of the family at your death. It is a common misconception that you have to leave your children something, even a dollar. That is not true! You can leave your children nothing, bypass your children and leave it all to your grandchildren or even forego all family members as the beneficiary and leave it to charity.
The most important thing in an estate plan is to make sure that the hard-earned money that you have spent a lifetime earning goes to the right people and that you have the right people in charge of your finances when you can no longer manage them yourself.