February 23, 2021

If you have multiple children that you intend to be beneficiaries of or executors in your estate, be careful about trying to apply things equally rather than fairly. Having multiple children and leaving them each behind a stake in the house can cause more conflicts than you ever intended.

Imagine, for example, that you have six children and all of them now equally own a portion of a vacation home or original home once you pass away. This means that either all of them will need to come to terms about what happens with the property or the property will need to be sold and divided among six parties in the event that they cannot come to a conclusion. 

Furthermore, naming multiple children as executors of your estate also leaves challenges regarding unified decisions. Especially if the children you intend to install in this role have different personalities and views over how things should be handled, this can delay the administration of your estate and increase family conflict.

There is still the possibility that a fight could occur without a will in place since the state will determine who receives what property, but having multiple executors serve at the same time or attempting to divide property, like a home, equally over multiple people can create far more problems than it would ever be worth. It is better to consider consulting with an estate planning attorney about the creation of a trust to empower these unique decisions and have them all working together.