I recently had a client who died. He had cancer and had been in the hospital, but it still came as a bit of a shock. We’d seen him the week before, and he was very clear-headed and did not seem to be in a lot of pain. Cancer can be strange.
I had written his estate plan nine years ago using a trust. He had been predeceased by both of his wives and had children by both of them. He was rather distant from his daughter by his first wife. He knew that she and her husband had been fairly prosperous, and he decided to leave her nothing. It wasn’t out of spite or anything. He wrote in his trust that he loved her, but he didn’t think that she needed anything. That didn’t really matter to the daughter. Her feelings were still hurt.
It used to be that families were pretty straightforward – a mom, a dad, and children – the nuclear family. That is often not the case in contemporary society. Many times, there are multiple spouses with stepchildren on both sides and joint children. Trying to sort out who should get what on the death of the first or second spouse to die can be complicated and delicate. Although mom and dad will have passed on, they typically don’t want to leave a train wreck for the family.
So careful planning is important. If there are children by prior marriages, on the death of the first spouse to die, will his or her share of the estate be set aside to take care of the surviving spouse? If so, who will be the trustee? And what happens on the death of the second spouse to die? If there are joint children, does everything go in equal shares only to those children with the assumption that the divorced spouse will provide for children of their prior marriage? Or is the estate to be divided among all of the surviving children equally or on some other equitable basis? Lots of questions to consider.
But planning is critical. If spouses own property jointly, on the death of the first, everything goes to the surviving spouse. On the death of the second, everything goes to his or her kids. Talk about hurt feelings!
Call if you want to talk.
