It’s not very often that I see an estate plan that treats children unequally. When I do, it is usually because a parent is estranged from one child and leaves him or her nothing. In estate planning, “equal” isn’t necessarily the same as “fair.” Recently, a client I’ll...
Based on my experience, American societal money scripts around estate planning appear to be “Good parents leave everything to family,” and “The more money I can leave my kids the better off they will be.” It’s not surprising, then, that estate...
One of the biggest conundrums of estate planning is considering how, or even if, you can give money or property to your heirs in a manner that will help them. How can leaving money to someone not be helpful? Research shows that receiving a lot of money can certainly...
A common estate-planning question is whether it makes sense to leave inheritances with strings attached. My typical answer is “it depends.” It’s natural to want your legacy to be used wisely, but trying to control from beyond the grave can have...
Does the executor of an estate deserve to be compensated for that service? Absolutely. As last week’s column pointed out, serving as an executor is often a time-consuming, emotionally draining task. Yet the issue of payment for an executor, especially one who is...
