There are “Legal” Ways to Eliminate Disputes and Keep Family Harmony

When money is involved people change. It’s just something I see all the time when doing Estate Planning for people. Everyone expects people to act in a certain way because that is how they are behaving today. But when the opportunity to acquire more money enters the equation, I see people changing all the time…unfortunately not for the better.

Family infighting happens when estates are being administered after the death of their loved one. And it’s generally due to economic issues rather than material issues. More people fight over how much money they will get than the family heirlooms that are going to be distributed. Since this happens more than I would like to see, it is my strong recommendation to anticipate this happening and do whatever you can to mitigate it before you pass away.

Many family fights over estates are predictable. It’s not hard to identify those family members who do not get along and are likely to fight over their inheritances. We also know that “unequal” inheritances are also more likely to trigger trouble.

And the biggest issue happens because of one simple word…EXPECTATIONS. Every family member has an anticipated expectation of what the family member who passed away might leave them. There are parts they feel are “deserved” and then there are those that they just knew they were going to get why the family member passes away. That prized car, boat, or waterfront cabin are surely going to be on the list of expectations…usually from all family members. It isn’t until the final reading and execution of the estate plan that people find out differently.

When it comes to estate planning, it is important to understand these fights quite often result in protracted court cases over the estate. This is especially true, if the main instrument used to distribute the estate is a will that has to go through probate by its very legal nature. Some of this mayhem may be avoided by using a trust instead as the Times Herald-Record discusses in "Trusts avoid inheritance disputes among family members."

Since trusts do not go through probate, it is a key instrument and estate planning attorney will use when developing an Estate Plan. When this occurs, there is no open probate case for family members to easily file a claim. When an estate plan is in place, it makes it much less likely things will lead to litigation. It is also easier to use the trust document itself to create language making family fights less likely. Even if there are fights, an independent trustee can often referee those fights and thus avoid any litigation.

It is nearly impossible to completely guarantee that no family fight will ever occur over an estate. An estate planning attorney can help make those fights much less likely, by creating a quality estate plan that has a trust as its core foundation. Keeping it “all in the family” and letting them know what is going to specifically happen to their assets is a great deterrent to family infighting.