Hi, I'm Eric Beutel. And today I want to talk to you about letting your family know about your estate plan.
I have the pleasure of guiding people as the leaders of their families to build a legacy and create peace of mind. I'm an attorney and I focus my practice on estate planning, elder law, and probate.
If you have any questions about estate planning, elder law or probate, you can book a time to talk to me for free it's as easy as going to EricBeutel.com.
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So today, as I mentioned, I want to talk to you about a blueprint for difficult conversations. So when you do your estate plan, a big part of it is talking to your family, letting them know what your plans are and why you chose them.
Sometimes creating an estate plan is not as difficult as you think. And actually the difficult part is letting your family know what your wishes are.
As people are living longer, we're seeing more widows and widowers who live decades without remarrying.
Often seniors find a partner, a life partner that they want to be with, but they're not really ready to get married, or they've decided for one reason or another, not to get married, but they still stay a great friends and maybe live together.
Also often these seniors are estranged from their children. For whatever reason, sometimes it's a matter of their children have just moved out and lost touch. And sometimes there are some other rift in the family.
In fact, I recently read a story in the New York post about a woman who was so angry with her father for changing his will and disinheriting her and selling his house that she actually attacked the man and his girlfriend and killed them.
So I'm not trying to make light of the story and the tragic situation, but it does show that there's really is important in discussing your missions with your family. And so I doubt it would have helped this New Jersey family that I'm talking about. It will help in a lot of situations.
So to make your discussions as productive as possible, what I'd like to do is kind of give you four tips, maybe a blueprint for discussing things that can be a little discomfort, uncomfortable and, and frustrating sometimes to some people.
Schedule a time and place to talk…
So the first tip is set aside some time and a place where you can talk. So actually schedule the time where you can talk without distractions or interruptions and ask your family and you yourself to put away devices, silence, whatever it is so that you won't be interrupted and you can make productive use of the time.
So when you do that, be up front with your family about the meeting's purpose, so that nobody's taken by surprise, and everybody can come to the discussion, prepared to discussion, prepared to talk and choose a setting that's comfortable and quiet and private.
The more relaxed everyone is, the more likely they're going to open up and the more comfortable everybody is going to be.
So that's your first step, you know, seven times a side and set aside a time and place to talk and be prepared.
Create an agenda with a stop and start time…
The second point that I'd like to say is, you know, create an agenda and set an actual stop and start time. So oftentimes these discussions can go on a long time. We get sidetracked and it's just not as productive as we'd like.
So make an important, make a list of important points that you want to cover and do your best to stick with them.
You should encourage open conversation, but having this list of items that you want to talk about, we'll make sure that you stick to the points and you don't get sidetracked too far.
And then if you have other items that come up that aren't on your list, then set those aside and have a conversation another day about those and make sure those are on that list.
Explain why your planning is important...
The third point is explain why your planning is important.
Talking about these issues is always a good way to avoid future conflict and expense.
And when family members don't understand clearly the reasoning behind one another's planning choices, it's likely to bring conflict, resentment, and even costly legal battles.
So by explaining why it's important to you and why you've made these choices that can really help to alleviate problems as well.
Discuss your planning experience…
And my final suggestion is discuss your planning experience.
Start by starting to talk by explaining your estate plan and the thoughtfulness that you put behind it, explain which documents you put in place. You know, your power of attorney, your living will of course your will, or if you've created a trust. And why did you choose those specific documents? And why did you choose specific agents?
For example, in those documents, by explaining your desires behind your plan, you can alleviate a lot of the frustration or concerns over the gifts that you're leaving, which ultimately when you, when people have those frustrations, that's where we run into some legal battles, because people will try to say that maybe somebody took advantage of you. Somebody convince you to do something you didn't want.
So if you, in these discussions set out and explain why you've made these choices and what your plans are, it's much less likely to have legal issues in the long run.
So I hope that was helpful. You know, it is really a good idea to sit down with your family, even if it's after you've done these plans and let them know what you've done and why your attorney may be happy.
I know we're always happy to meet with families and explain not all the intricate details necessarily, but explain what documents you have and what the plan is and sort of how it would work. So your attorney may be to do that with you too.
So I appreciate you watching. And as a reminder, if you have questions about estate planning and capacity planning, elder law or probate, you can book a time to talk to me over the phone or in person it's free. Just go to EricBeutel.com and follow me on social media and like my YouTube channel and feel free to leave comments below. I will answer them.
Thank you again for your time. And remember if you liked this video, hit the like button. If you know someone who needs to hear this, please feel free to share it with them for an a to them and have them subscribe to my channel.
Once again, I'm Eric Beutel and I have the pleasure of guiding people as leaders of their families to build legacy and create peace of mind. I'm an attorney and I focus my practice on elder law estate planning and probate.
Thank you.