You’ve achieved a certain level of success, and you understand the privileges of significant wealth come with challenges. Among those challenges is successfully passing your wealth and values on to the next generation. Without careful planning, almost 70% of heirs’ money, assets and family harmony disappear after an estate transition. The conversations with your family may be sensitive, but they’ll be worthwhile.
Don’t Let Your Hair Down
Research and data clearly demonstrate a lack of transparency or a shared family vision can adversely impact the rising generation. To stack the odds in your favor, you’ll need to create a framework to help your heirs flourish. Family meetings can help provide a structure that supports meaningful, multigenerational dialogue.
Each generation will have different ideas about how to use money to benefit their lives. While you may not always agree with your kids, give them a say in how the family wealth should be used. That can help connect generations and shape your family’s future while promoting openness and family harmony. If nothing else, family discussions will lend insight into each other’s values and temperaments and give you an opening to understand them better.
Create A Road Map
Support whatever conversations you have with documentation, storing legal paperwork, passwords, insurance policies, titles and deeds with a trusted attorney, advisor or in a secure online portal, which allows you to assign various levels of access to particular people. Don’t forget to include the contact information of your estate planning team in case your heirs need it down the line.
Understand that wealth’s privileges and complexities demand thoughtful preparation and honest, ongoing conversations. Circumstances can and will change, as should your estate plan. Work with your advisor along with your other planning professionals to find fair answers to important questions, establish trust and open dialogue, and provide the gift of opportunity to those who matter most.
Next Steps
If you’re not sure how to start the conversation with your heirs, choose a topic below and let the dialogue flow. Define your family’s mission statement and your intentions for your wealth and legacy. If something happened to you tomorrow, is your family comfortable enough with your financial details to assemble a snapshot of your assets? Let them know where you’ve stored necessary documents and how to access them.