Create Family Harmony Now to Make it Easy Later

This guest post is from Rebecca Dattilo, Regent Law 3L:

Losing a parent is one of the greatest losses a child will experience. I personally know this pain and grief first-hand as I lost my dad before attending law school at Regent. What I never realized is just how complicated the process of intestate succession is. My dad passed away without a will, which placed his estate into the probate process. I was appointed by the Court as the personal representative of my dad’s estate and was entrusted with the responsibility of managing his assets and their disposition. I was appointed to collect, inventory, and have appraised my dad’s estate, notify creditors, and sell his various assets. I had to hire an attorney and an accountant to help me navigate selling off my dad’s out of state property and assisting me in filing my dad’s last income tax with the IRS. I felt in over my head as I took on these administrative duties. Throughout this whole process, I learned a few lessons that families should consider as they contemplate the afterlife. 

1. Execute a will. This is an opportunity for you to expressly lay out your wishes for how you would like your property to be distributed and who you would like your property to be distributed to. While serving as the personal representative of my dad’s estate, I tried to make decisions based off of what my dad would have wanted- would he have thought this was a reasonable price to sell a vehicle? would he have actually wanted to sell his property to this person? would he have made this charitable donation? is this how he would have wanted me to manage the estate’s assets? A will can avoid this confusion, and provide a sense of relief and peace of mind for your family as your actual wishes will be carried out.

2. Have those tough conversations with family members about how you would like to be remembered. I regret that my dad and I never discussed what his death might look like, as I had to make guesses about where he would have wanted to be buried, what songs he wanted played at his funeral, whether he desired a religious celebration of his life. These types of wishes can also be set out and placed in a document, in addition to your will and will serve as an additional guidance to your family.

3. Consider utilizing will substitutes such as trusts, life insurance, POD (payable-on-death) bank accounts, Pension and Retirement plans, and TOD (transfer-on-death) Contracts to protect your estate from falling into probate succession. These methods allow assets to pass to your designated beneficiaries without having to go through the courts. This is yet another way that you can control how you want your property to be distributed and save your family members the headache of paying court costs and attorney fees.

Although it can be quite difficult to create an estate plan or even to discuss death with your loved ones, it is worthwhile to make these formal preparations and have these critical conversations. Your family will experience great comfort in knowing that your desires will be executed in your estate’s succession.