It’s officially November, which means—like it or not—the holiday season has begun. Garland will soon dress every storefront, ornaments are already being hung, and every shopping mall in America has hit ‘play’ on an endless list of catchy carols to carry you through the season. For many, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. For many others, however, it’s also a time of stress and worry—especially if you’re among the many adults who will be taking the opportunity to discuss estate planning and inheritances while spending time with their families over the holidays.
This is an important conversation to have, but it must be handled delicately in order to prevent dissension amongst your family members. Here are five tips for helping you through this hurdle, without spoiling the holiday season in the process.
5 Tips for a Family-Friendly Inheritance Talk
- Don’t Let It Come as A Surprise: As you firm up your plans for the holidays, let your family know you’d like to take advantage of the occasion to talk about your estate plan. Tell them that you’re working out how to distribute your assets, and hope for their input and understanding. If your intention is to ask a family member to fulfill an administrative role in executing your estate, give them a heads-up, so they can reflect on whether they are comfortable with the responsibility.
- Prioritize Listening: No child ever has had an easy time digesting their parents’ mortality, so you should anticipate some tension. One of the best ways to diffuse the situation is to make listening a priority. Of course, you need to present your ideas, describe your wishes, and explain your reasoning…but, once this is done, you need to hear what everyone else has to say. Hold space for input, think carefully about how best to talk to each individual, and present the project of organizing your estate as collaborative and inclusive.
- Give it Time: While you might start the inheritance talk this holiday season, don’t expect to finish it. Determining how to distribute your life’s work in a way that ensures your loved ones feel cared for and seen is complex. If you truly take the time to listen to and consider everyone’s input, this initial conversation will be the first of many, as you revise your ideas in response to what you hear. However tedious and uncomfortable this may seem—few people relish a conversation about estate planning!—the time you invest will pay dividends in the long-term well-being of your family.
- Arrive Prepared: Beyond providing space for conversation and making thoughtful listening a priority, the best way to ensure success when talking about inheritances is to show up prepared. Long before you begin baking holiday cookies, compose a list of all your assets and who you think they might go to. In addition, think carefully about who may be best suited to serve as executor of your estate, your financial power of attorney, medical power of attorney, and, where applicable, trustee. Having a clear sense of everything you need to address will help ensure nothing is overlooked, and no one is left out.
- Seek Professional Support: Sometimes the best way to protect your family from conflict where estate planning and inheritances are concerned is to relieve them of having to administer the process altogether. Be it because you worry about tension between strong personalities, because nobody is well-suited for the role, because you can already sense dissension bubbling up beneath the surface, or because you prefer the simple security of knowing your estate is in professional hands, you might consider involving a professional fiduciary.
To learn more about how a professional fiduciary can relieve the potential for conflict and ensures your life’s work is fairly and efficiently passed on to your beneficiaries, do not hesitate to schedule a consultation with Santa Barbara Fiduciary.
