1.   Unconditional Love

The best inheritance you can give your children is a lifetime of unconditional love, reasonable rules and discipline and many opportunities to learn how to decide for themselves. If it has not been that way all their lives, start now.        

2.   You Decide

The best inheritance you can give your children in your estate plan is to make all the decisions yourself. Do not take the easy way out and let them decide later. Do not make one child decide about which children get what property, or whether to withdraw life support from you, if you are not conscious to decide for yourself. This "not deciding" is a prescription for disaster, hatred and guilt toward each other in the family for the rest of the children's lives. You may think your children would never be like that. You'd be surprised. When these issues of love, life, death and money arise, emotion often takes over. Spare them! Make the hard decisions yourself. It is one of the best things you can do for them.        

3.   Do Your Estate Plan

Do not make your children decide how to divide your property. They may argue about it the rest of their lives. Besides if you do your estate plan, you can save taxes, have the people you want handle your property, give your property the way you want and save angers and hates in the family for years to come. Estate planning is a good deal- save taxes, save trouble, save the kids.        

4.   Sign An Advanced Directive For Health Care (Living Will, Health Care Proxy)

Each person is different about whether they want to be artificially kept alive. Some want to fight to the last breath. Some are "ready to go" and do not want to spend family money on delaying the inevitable. As mentioned in 2 above, do not make your children make this decision without guidance from you. If you give one child the power to make the decision, but do not say what you want, no matter how the child decides, some other child is likely to strongly disagree, even if you verbally told them how you feel. No matter how the child decides, he or she risks being hated by the brother or sister for either killing the parent, or squandering the children's inheritance. Emotions run unexpectedly high in these circumstances. The best way to avoid terrible trauma for your children is to complete an advanced directive for health care. There are no right answers. However you want to do it is right, but you decide, and put it in writing.        

The law provides a from for an advanced directive for health care. If you sign it in certain places, the doctor is protected from prosecution, if he or she withdraws treatment or food and water. You can specify someone to be your health care proxy to make the decisions for you, that is to tell the doctors what to do, but you still specifically authorize on the form, your healthcare proxy (such as one of your children) to have treatment withheld if that is what you want, or food and water withheld if that is what you want. These actions can only be taken if your attending physician and one other physician determine that you will die within six months no matter what medical science does, or you are persistently unconscious with no awareness of self or environment (such as the Karen Quinlan case).        

Even if you do not want any of these actions taken as long as you are alive, sign the advanced directive, appoint a child or someone your health care proxy, and do not sign the specific actions. The form works that way too, and then your child who has to make these decisions, has written direction from you about what you want done and what you do not want done.        

I always offer to include an advanced directive for health care as a part of the revocable trust package. You can get a form for free from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, if you want. I use my own form following the statutory form. There are no "right answers" on this subject. Each person is different, and what the person wants to do is what is right. I explain the options to my client, while my client decides whether to sign in each place. If you would like to talk to me about this, call me at (405) 842-7590 or click here to E-mail me.        

5.   Tell Your Family Where Your Papers Are

Suppose you have a will or trust, but none of your family knows it. What about insurance policies or the titles to cars and boats? You need to have a safe place to keep such papers, where you can find them, and then tell your family members, especially those who will be responsible for your estate or trust after you are gone, where your papers are kept.        

6.   Tell Your Family About Special Assets

You may have assets that will not go through your will or revocable trust. For example if you have a retirement program or an IRA, they will remain outside your will or trust. They have beneficiary designations, so you can designate who will receive the property after your lifetime. However, someone has to file a claim or tell the retirement plan administrator. If your successor trustee or personal representative does not know about the asset, how can they file a claim? If you have done your estate planning with an attorney or other professional, he or she should have a list of your assets. Still tell your family also.        

7.   Tell Your Family Who Your Advisors Are

Often a husband and wife come in together to do their estate planning. However, sometimes the spouse or the children or other family members who are expected to help, do not know what was set up, or who the advisors were. Suppose the advisor, attorney, accountant, insurance agent, financial planner, stock broker, banker or other, has a complete list of assets. However, it does no good if the family does not know who the advisors are. The information may never get to the right person. Tell your family who your advisors are. The best way to do this is to involve them in your estate planning process.        

As long as the client approves it, I always encourage children, other advisors or friends to sit in on estate planning meetings. If the person is going to be a co-trustee or successor trustee or personal representative of the estate, they can learn what they are supposed to do and the intent of the client at the same time the client goes over the documents. Sometimes such people have good, practical suggestions of changes in the documents that make them work better in this case. It is easier to incorporate the changes at the time than to do an amendment or a codicil later. For all these reasons, it is advisable to involve the key family people and often the children in the estate planning process. Then everybody knows it was what you wanted to do, and they will only be carrying out your wishes, not imposing their own decisions on your estate. Your other children are far more likely to accept the actions of a child you chose to be trustee, if they know it was what you wanted. See 2 above for why this is so valuable to the next generation.        

8.   Choosing A Guardian For The Children And A Trustee

A guardian will have control of the persons and estates of your minor children. Who would you want to rear your children, if you and your spouse did not? For some people it is a hard question. For others it has an easy, obvious answer. Sometimes this issue is what holds up completing the estate plan. So think about it early.        

If you have substantial assets that have to be invested and managed, you need to choose a successor trustee to be in charge of your trust and do these jobs. Sometimes the same person you want to take care of your children is also good at investing money and spending it wisely. Then that person can serve in both positions. However, often the person who is good at taking care of the children, is not the one you would choose to hold and wisely invest the money. You can name different people. Name one person to be guardian and another person to be trustee. You also divide up the work this way.        

It is my opinion that if you ask a family member to be your trustee or personal representative, that you should pay them for their work. There is significant work involved, including investing, deciding about distributions, keeping a bank account, investment accounts, managing real estate and filing tax returns. I recommend they receive a fee similar to what a bank or trust company would charge in your community for doing the same work.        

9.   If Possible, Always Name A Successor Trustee And Successor Guardian

If you do not name a successor trustee and successor guardian, and that person does not serve or resigns, then your heirs have to go to court to have a successor appointed by a judge. You can save the cost and confusion of this by naming a successor. I urge you to name a trustee, successor trustee and successor trustee. The same goes for your personal representative and guardian and their successors.        

10.   Review Your Estate Plan Every Three To Five Years

Things change. Sometimes things change slowly so you do not notice. The tax law changes. Children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews are born, go to college, marry and have children. All of these things may affect your original estate plan and documents. The best and most practical way to take changes into account is to review your estate plan with your advisor every 3 years to 5 years. Good luck with your estate planning, and your reviews. I hope you have many of them.        

If you would like make an appointment for a free initial consultation, call me at (405) 842-7590 or click here to E-mail me.        

Share your estate planning tips with me. I will put the one's I like the best on this page. See if you can bump one of my Top Ten. Click here to E-mail me.