Saving Cinderella

 

This guest post is from Regent Law 2L Jodi Barder:

 We cheer when Prince Charming saves Cinderella from her stepmother’s clutches. But ponder this: Could Cinderella’s father have saved her from her stepmother before the prince did? Yes, he could have by careful planning in his estate plan.

Life is hard and not always magical. Maybe that’s why we like fairy tales so much. We can escape reality for 74 minutes. But Walt Disney didn’t recreate Cinderella last century. The earliest “Cinderella” story appears to be from Greek or Italian roots, hundreds, or thousands, of years ago. A different era for orphaned daughters with regards to property rights, guardians, and education, but the root problem, or tale, is as old as time.

When Cinderella was orphaned by both her natural parents’ deaths, her stepmother presumably gained control of not only Cinderella herself in the form of a guardianship, but also of Cinderella’s father’s estate. Blended families require careful consideration. 

Not all stepparents are like Cinderella’s selfish stepmother at all. Being a parent is hard, and being a stepparent can be even harder with many additional competing factors. But when a natural parent desires for his or her estate to pass to a natural child not shared with his or her current spouse at death, careful estate planning is required.

As an estate-paralegal-turned-law-student, I witnessed many estate plans where blended parents signed sweetheart wills, intending for leftover assets to be evenly split between all blended children upon the second spouse’s passing. But when the first spouse passed away (usually the father), the other spouse (usually the stepmother), would create new estate planning documents, giving everything to her natural children and leaving her stepchildren with nothing. 

Moving to the estate administration side, when the modern day “Cinderella” finds out her father’s estate does not exist, she feels abandoned. Ultimately, freedom of disposition is left to the testator, her step mother. And if Cinderella’s father intended for his daughter to inherit nothing, his estate plan certainly accomplished his goal. 

Blended families should consider the blended family factor when choosing a will or trust. But no matter how you choose to have your assets distributed, consider leaving a letter to your Cinderella communicating your legacy – your faith and love for her. That is far more valuable than any monetary gift you can leave. Cinderella turned out just fine, but her father’s careful planning could have saved her a lot of pain.  That's what family restoration is all about.