June 19, 2020

The last thing you want is for your loved ones to end up in court battling over the terms of your estate. In addition to piling on unnecessary stress and conflict during this period, issues like this can reduce the overall value of your estate, too.

You’ve thought carefully about your estate plan and what you hope to achieve with it and the assets you leave behind. You also have to think carefully about the message that you’ll be sending to your children when your estate plan is activated. 

Leaving behind unequal inheritances might make sense for your family but it can also pave the path for potential arguments and conflicts among the siblings who have received differing amounts. If you haven’t had the conversations about your decision to go this route, you need to think about your unique family dynamics. 

Leaving unequal inheritances isn’t the only way to find yourself facing these challenges. In fact, some children who have contributed more or might see themselves as having more substantial financial needs could be frustrated by a strictly equal distribution of assets. One of the first steps that you can take is to define what fair looks like for your family that might not be the same as what it looks like for everyone else, but the more carefully that you can think about this for your individual purposes the easier it will be to approach estate planning with care.