CNBC.com | Your Money
By Genna Contino, September 22nd, 2024
Handling the estate of a deceased parent can be an emotional process for children already dealing with grief. Those emotions can become more complicated if the estate plan doesn’t unfold as expected — say, if there is an uneven split of assets among children or a previously unknown heir who comes forward to claim a share of the estate.
One estate surprise may be assets given to a person, pet or entity, such as a charity or alma mater, the family wasn’t expecting as a beneficiary… Estate planning bombshells aren’t unusual.
More than a third, 36%, of people with a will say there are surprises for their beneficiaries in that document, according to a 2023 LegalShield survey.
Many people avoid writing a will or creating a trust at all due to procrastination or superstition surrounding death, experts say. But reframing the estate planning process as leaving a positive legacy, rather than just distributing assets after death, can help clients take on a more compassionate long-term view.
About two-thirds of Americans, 68%, say discussing end-of-life preparations with loved ones is important, but only 47% have done so, according to a 2022 Ethos survey. And a 2024 report from online estate planning service Trust & Will found that 34% of millennials are unsure if their parents even have an estate plan.
Feelings of pain and betrayal can be avoided by having discussions about your estate plan with your family before death; however, estate planning attorneys say these conversations are rare.
There have been a zillion times when people have told me, ‘No, all the kids get along. They all understand what I’ve done’. And they may believe that because the kids appear to get along. But as soon as the parents are gone, those emotions come out of the closet like a torrent, and no, they don’t always get along.
Martin Shenkman, Estate Planning Attorney
The first step to avoiding these kinds of hardships is do everything from a compassionate perspective, not from anger. Don’t write a will from anger. Don’t write an estate plan from anger.
