Legacy Matters
THE day will come, or may have already, when your children think of your money as theirs.
Learning to Share
Putting off discussion and then springing an unwelcome surprise in a will can poison the reservoir of family joy that parents want to bequeath to the next generation, resurrecting or exacerbating sibling rivalries, especially in blended families created through divorce or remarriage after the death of a spouse.
Succession is a natural progression, as old as the concept of private property, yet many parents never bother to tell their children about plans for their estate.
David Cay Johnston in the New York Times lays out the costs of not telling your children about uneven shares in your will.
Mitchell Gans, a law professor at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., who has helped develop some of the most complex estate plans in the country, recommends that in such cases you should prepare the will and then notify “the kids that you are cutting out — or who are getting less than the others.”
“If you have the courage to do that,” Professor Gans said, “you cut down significantly the chance of litigation after death.”