Estate planning can be a tricky conversation for people to have with their parents. Essentially, it involves looking to a future where the parents are no longer around, which can make things difficult to discuss openly.
However, ensuring parents have an estate plan in place is one of the best ways to avoid family drama when it comes to dividing assets or determining who has the ultimate say over decisions such as long-term healthcare when they reach their later years. No matter how difficult the conversation may be, the implications of not having it can be far trickier to negotiate once they are gone.
Dr Edgar Paltzer counts estate planning among his preferred areas of practice as an experienced attorney-at-law. Involving a specialist estate planning attorney can help reduce the risk of difficult conversations becoming unpleasant, as well as ensuring all legal criteria are met.
A more detailed explanation of what estate planning involves can be found in the PDF attachment to this post.
Include Everyone
No matter what you believe about the competence of other family members when it comes to estate planning, one of the best ways to reduce the risk of discord is to involve every relevant party at every stage of the discussion.
Siblings and any other potential beneficiaries should be included, as each individual may have their own personal desires for outcomes and their own idea of what is fair. Involving everyone at an early stage and getting these desires and ideas out in the open while the parents are still available and healthy means there is less likelihood of dispute at a later stage, as no-one will be guessing what the parents may have wanted.
The infographic attachment has some statistics from a poll on estate planning.
Living Wills and Last Wills
A last will deals mainly with the distribution of assets following death, although it may also look at other factors such as the guardianship of dependants if relevant. A living will concerns factors such as who would be in charge of making healthcare decisions should a parent become incapacitated, who will control their finances, and other areas such as wishes for organ donation or life support. Estate planning should separate the two areas. More details about making a living will can be seen in the embedded short video.