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Hello and welcome to the show today. This is the trusted podcast and I’m your host, Blake Johnson. And today we’re going to talk about how to avoid family conflicts at a your death. That’s one of the big things people are worried about is wanting to make sure that when they die, um, it doesn’t tear apart the family cause, uh, you’ve all heard the phrase money changes people. And when you get an inheritance or there’s a potential for a big inheritance, um, siblings can get pretty bitter or even other family members who feel like they deserve more will will get involved Trust Attorney Las Vegas. So let’s jump right in and talk about what are some things you can do to avoid having those conflicts. Now the first thing is to, uh, make sure you have a clear plan. So, um, you know, actually do your estate planning. Have A, we’ll have a trust.
Um, you know, get that in place. Talk with a qualified estate planning attorney who knows what they’re talking about, who know, who had some experience and seen, um, you know, issues come up and can give you some advice on, um, you know, what you can do in your situation. Uh, be up front with your attorney, explain, say, hey look, you know, these two siblings don’t get along. What can we do to help prevent any fighting? Um, and that helps us as a state planning attorneys to know how we can do some the planning and what advice we can give you there. Now within your trust, you want a very clear plan, make it detailed, everything is split equally or you know, I split, you know, this person gets this thing because of whatever the reason is. Um, you know, say let’s say the house while they’ve been, they’ve been living there, they’ve been paying the mortgage for us while we were there or this sibling gets it because they were the ones living with us and giving us all the caretaking.
Um, you know, in our later years Trust Attorney Las Vegas. And so they deserve to get a little bit more too, since they provided all the work and were had to give up some, some opportunities to travel and work and so on. Those are some examples of things you can do in your actual planning. Now, every a good estate planning attorney will have what’s called a no contest clause in their trust. And what that says is that if anybody contests the trust, um, who is a beneficiary and they lose, they only get a dollar. So you want to give them something to lose so that if they do contest it, they’re giving up a big share. Now, if it’s, you know, all the kids get get split equally, you know, that’s, that’s their share. So they’re going to give up one third of the estate. If there’s three kids, if they lose this lawsuit, most likely they’re not going to take, um, you know, they’re not going to take that chance.
The other thing is, is it tells the other attorney who they’re going to hire. Look, this one’s pretty ironclad. We’re gonna lose. That means I’m not going to get paid. So I’m not going to take the lawsuit. So it prevents a lot of fighting in lawsuits to begin with. Um, you can do the same thing in your will as your trust. Having a no contest clause. You want to make that clear. Um, so that if the stuff that goes to probate is as well, they, they risk the chance of losing their share there. Now, let’s say it’s a sibling or a child that you want to completely disinherit it. Um, sometimes if you have the means do it, giving them something like $10,000 so that they have something to lose. If they can test it and you know, they’re going to contest it, my discourage them say, oh well I got, I can get at least 10,000 guaranteed or I can take this and get nothing.
So sometimes that’s a strategy as well. Another great strategy for, um, preventing fights is to have a third party be the successor trustee. And what I mean by that is don’t have, if the kids don’t get along, don’t pick one of your kids or two of your kids who don’t get along to make decisions. That’s just going to make it a nightmare for everybody. Have a third party that can be, you know, a non family member. It can be, you know, one of your siblings that’s going to administer it for your kids. Um, it can be a friend or it can be, you know, a corporate trustee like a bank, a trust company, um, an attorney’s office. Uh, really anybody who’s willing to take on that role as a fiduciary. And sometimes if there’s a big enough estate and you know, there’s going to be fights, it makes sense to have a corporate trustee like a banger trust company who’s going to have the means to take care of, um, you know, all the reporting and, and the legal necessities that go along with that.
Um, and can also, you know, they have the experience to make sure they’re doing everything fairly and correctly so that there’s no issues with that. So that’s what’s what you can do with your actual estate plan. Now, then my next piece of advice, um, to, uh, avoid conflicts of death is to be upfront with everyone. Tell them what’s going on in your trust and your will and what you want to have happen. Say, Hey, look, this is why I’m doing this. And um, that can help prevent the conflicts and fights as well. So, uh, one of the things that we’ve done for many of our clients is they hold a family meeting, have all the, you know, around Thanksgiving or Christmas time, everybody comes in a little bit early and I will actually go out and meet with the family and explain what mom and dad’s, um, state plan is, what their trust says, who’s getting what, how the distributions are working Trust Attorney Las Vegas.
And so that everybody’s clear and upfront. They can ask questions about how it works. They can ask questions and mom and dad why they’re doing it that way. And that helps clear the air and it’s more of on me instead of on mom and dad. And I can help explain that and relieve a lot of the tension there. And because it’s out in the open, there’s no surprises when mom and dad die. Um, you know, so that’s, that’s an option. Obviously, you know, if you’re bringing the attorney and uh, you’re going to have to pay for their time, but it may be worth it, um, to avoid those conflicts and keep the family together. Uh, and then on top of that, we always recommend to our clients to write a letter about what they’re doing, why they did it, and to put that with their will and trust so that it’s very clear, um, in they’re reminded of, you know, Oh yeah, that’s right.
Mom and dad Trust Attorney Las Vegas did tell us that’s why they’re doing that. And so we have a record of that as well. Now, ironically, the biggest fights that I’ve seen have always been about personal property. Those are the things like rings and necklaces or pictures or artwork in the house or you know, whatever is sentimental to that child. Um, is what causes the biggest fights. You know, they don’t usually go to court over it, but that’s can lead people very, very bitter. So when it comes to personal property, we put in the trust, we put a clause that says that you can make a list and specify analyst who gets what. And we highly recommend that you do that in conjunction with your trust so that it’s very clear who you want to get, what items. Now, if you don’t want to go through that right now, one of the simple things to do is to find out who wants what.
So you know, have your kids send you an email list or go through and put a sticker on the stuff that they want with this specific color. Um, and that way you can see, oh, everybody wants this item, we better take care of that, um, or discuss how that’s going to be decided or you know, whatever it is. Um, try and get it, get ahead of that and find out where the contention items are gonna be at. Um, cause like I said, that’s where I see the most, uh, most fights is over the personal property. If you don’t do anything, default is a successor trustee comes in and says, all right, everybody picks something that you want or you know, we’re gonna, you know, roll the dice. Whoever has the highest number goes first Trust Attorney Las Vegas. We just go in order and pick, pick one thing at a time, whatever they want to do to be fair.
And um, you know, hopefully they wouldn’t fight if it’s by luck that way. Um, but you can make it what you want. Um, that’s the whole point of estate planning is to make sure your wishes are carried out through a trust and will and everything else you have going on. Uh, another option is you can give away some of your stuff now, um, start cleaning up your house, um, and to make sure that, uh, you know, you can, you can get input from the kids who wants what and then start cleaning out, make it easier for them so they don’t have to go through and clean out your house after you pass away. Um, that would debt. They would definitely appreciate that. Um, another option, a final option is just say, you know what? I don’t want any fighting, we’re just going to sell everything Trust Attorney Las Vegas.
We’ll put that into the trust. Says, all right Paul, my death, all personal property, everything is just sold. You know, they do the auction and um, whatever the funds are that’s divided equally and that helps obviously eliminate a lot of stuff as well. Um, it works if you don’t have a whole lot of sentimental or family heirlooms. So, um, you know, use that one with caution. But that’s my take on some ways to avoid conflict when you pass away. You know, biggest thing is always prepare ahead. Uh, we always like to say preparation and planning leads to peaceful passing. So we hope that this helps. And, um, you know, always you can always reach out if you have any questions, but that is how to avoid conflict.
