The Truth about Estate Planning

The basic purpose of estate planning is to arrange for your estate to benefit those people you want to benefit.  And clearly you want in most cases to do this for as little as possible in terms of expense, estate tax and income tax.  While most people understand and accept this basic focus, most people do not understand the hard part of the estate plan.

The hard part involves an honest assessment of those people for whom the estate plan is being constructed.  Only after those assessments are made can a good estate plan be built.  The interests, education, goals, abilities, experiences and needs of the beneficiaries must among other matters be wisely evaluated and periodically re-evaluated to keep up with inevitable changes.

Accurate assessments are tough especially where the focus is on family members.  And since most people are unable to objectively assess those they love, they need the confidential, objective assistance of their lawyer.

For example, is oldest son the one with the ability, experience and trustworthiness to manage the estate?  Perhaps the youngest daughter is.  Perhaps a professional manager or trustee is needed.

Perhaps one family member is going to run a family business but other family members are owners with whom there are real conflicts.  That requires some real tough, creative decisions in order to maximize business success while minimizing conflict.

And don’t forget that family members often need to be trained to even partially manage or administer estate assets.  And even with some training they usually need experience actually doing what is expected of them.  I could go on and on about all the various problem scenarios and what good estate planning involves, but I assume you get the picture.

A Trust Document and/or Will from the guy on the radio is not an estate plan.  An estate plan involves a whole lot more.