For parents, the estate planning process often presents special concerns when it comes to children, especially for those who worry about fairness. For example, parents who have multiple children sometimes face uncertainty over how to distribute their assets. Most parents worry about how their children will view their decisions with respect to an estate plan, and we realize that some family disputes are centered around inheritance. With careful preparation, parents are able to minimize these issues or avoid them altogether.
For starters, it is important for parents to avoid feeling pressured by family members including children to distribute their estate in a particular manner. It is up to the person creating an estate plan to decide how to divide their assets among beneficiaries, regardless of whether everyone agrees with the decisions that they make. It is often very hard to decide how to divide assets among kids and there are a lot of factors to think about. For example, some parents decide to leave one child with more because they need the help more than their siblings do. However, this decision often upsets other children.
Other factors affect how parents decide to distribute their estate among children, such as their relationship with each child. For example, parents sometimes leave less to children who were not there for them, especially during tough times (such as major health issues), while others worry about a child’s ability to manage the assets properly. Sometimes, hard feelings lead to litigation. Visit our estate planning section to access more information connected to distributing your assets among loved ones.
