The Wealth & Wisdom Blog

Broaching political topics at Thanksgiving with your family may not lead to great holiday cheer. In comparison, a discussion centered around your own death—that is, your estate plan—may be far more palatable.  In this month’s advisory update, I provide a few general recommendations about what information that you and your clients could share with your family about your estate plan.

Information To Share Now

If you were a client of our firm, we would likely encourage you to share the following information with your family:

• The key individuals, or “fiduciary,” appointments that comprise your estate plan.
• Your plan for the distribution of unique, difficult-to-value, or perhaps even “indivisible” assets, such as valuable artwork, a family cabin, or a business.
• The identity of your professional advisors.
• The physical location of your legal documents.
• The whereabouts of a current financial statement, a list of your current service providers and summary of your online accounts.¹

Information To Withhold

In contrast, you might withhold information in certain circumstances.

• If you have concerns about a child’s personal career progression, you might withhold disclosure of your personal finances. A future financial inheritance should not be an impediment towards a child’s goals of self-sufficiency.
• If you have made disproportionate gifts among your children or their families, you might withhold disclosure, at least for now, of any such disproportionate gifts. We recommend that your estate plan expressly direct how any disproportionate lifetime gifts should be treated at your death.

Benefits of Communicating the Plan

At least three key benefits result from clearly communicating your plan during lifetime.

• Legal Certainty: First, you would be certain that the estate plan will not be subject to a legal challenge.² If you have adequately communicated your estate plan to your children at a time when you have no evidence of undue influence or diminished capacity, you will have a “bullet proof” legal plan.
• Desired Asset Distribution Format Among Children: Second, adequate communication allows for easy and prompt changes to your estate plan when life changes. A plan for the division of the family cabin can easily be reconsidered when a son announces that he and his wife have bought their own family cabin, or a daughter takes a new job and moves from Minnesota to New York.
• Clearance of Emotional Baggage: Third, adequate communication creates an opening for children to respond to you, now, over the Thanksgiving dinner table, and not respond with animus towards their siblings, later, after your death and over your coffin.

Unlike the drama that surrounds political candidates and elections, your estate plan should be free from unnecessary drama.