Estate Planning for Traditional and Non-Traditional Family Situations

Choosing who should inherit your wealth after you die can sometimes be an emotional process.  Many people come from families where their parents are divorced, or may be divorced themselves.  Not to mention that people often remarry someone that already has kids from a previous marriage, have children with their new spouse, or both.  How should you go about setting up your estate plan, and what kinds of things should you be thinking about when choosing who should get what, after you die?  A recent New York Times article (“How a Will Treating Children Differently Can Still Be Fair” by Paul Sullivan-see link below) examined how differing family situations can potentially be reasons to change your estate plan from treating all of your children equally to changing the proportionate share each child will receive when you die.  The article notes that even when parents try to treat children equally through their wills or trusts, they sometimes forget that other assets, such as retirement accounts or bank accounts that transfer on death to someone, will transfer to beneficiaries automatically.  Forgetting to take into account retirement accounts or other investment accounts can significantly alter the percentages of your estate that each of your children ultimately will receive.

Additionally, different states have different laws that govern who will receive your estate if you have children from a prior marriage and are married to a new spouse at the time of your death (if you die without an estate plan or forget to plan for some assets in your current estate plan).  While that is a somewhat common potential issue that clients may have, that is just one of many friction-causing situations between surviving family members that can be avoided by drafting a will or trust.  Avoiding potential conflicts between family members after your death is merely one of the many reasons to review your current estate plan with a skilled estate planning attorney.  

If you think that you need to have your estate plan reviewed, or need help setting up an estate plan, we have skilled attorneys who can assist you.  Whether it’s a relatively straightforward issue or an incredibly complicated one, we would love to sit down and figure out what we can do to help you have an estate plan that fits your goals.

Check out Paul Sullivan’s New Your Times Article Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/your-money/how-a-will-treating-children-differently-can-still-be-fair.html