The Key to a Great Estate Plan
When you study a topic and deal with real world case studies, some common threads emerge. For more than 35 years, my focus has been on estate planning and related needs.
I receive great calls every day, from people ready to create or update an outdated estate plan. Or from family members who are now benefitting from the planning established by a deceased loved one. Unfortunately, I get at least an equal number of calls from family members of a deceased loved one that failed to plan.
Over the years, I have identified a number of elements that are common to every great estate plan. But there is one ingredient above all that stands out as the single most important element of a great estate plan. The key ingredient. Without this element in the mix, nothing good can happen. What is this indispensable ingredient?
Every great estate plan begins with a realization on the part of our client. An understanding that SOMEDAY IS COMING. That someday, there will be no more time or opportunities to plan. In fact, when someday comes, nothing left undone will be completed. But the worst thing about someday is this. No one knows when it will arrive. For too many people, someday finds them unprepared.
SHIRLEY’S STORY
A recent widow named Shirley called me about a year ago. She fought tears and shared her story. Twenty-nine years she and Mac had been married. Not the first marriage for either of them, but both were grateful, in this second chance, to have found the love of their life. Both had children from their first marriages. Mac hadn’t talked to his in decades. Didn’t even know where they lived. He had never even mentioned their names in her presence. Shirley was sad that Mac had no relationship with his children, but in the end they didn’t worry.
What mattered to Mac and Shirley was right in front of them. The life and the home they had built together. Their dreams and their plan for the future. For someday. Mac would pay off the mortgage, burn the note, and retire. They would travel the states – one day – and enjoy coming back to their home. And years later, Mac promised, when their travels were over and he was no longer by her side, their mortgage-free home would be hers.
Then someday arrived. Suddenly. Terribly. Someday arrived the morning Mac didn’t wake up. Someday showed up much too soon for Shirley. And brought with it a nagging fear. There was still a mortgage to deal with, but Mac’s income was gone. And Shirley had no way to make up for its loss. Her church helped with money to bury Mac, but she could not pay her bills. She faced the loss of the home Mac provided.
Then one day a mortgage company called and hope returned. A reverse mortgage would provide the money Shirley desperately needed. Money she would not have to repay. Her fear was replaced with relief. Until she received a call from the title company picked to close the transaction. They had a question. Was she going to probate Mac’s Will before the closing?
A Will?, she responded. Mac didn’t have a Will. Believed he didn’t need one. After all, it was just the two of them, and they bought the home together. Mac promised! He promised that if he died, their home would automatically be hers. Who else could it possibly go to, but Shirley! Then came the terrible answer. Mac’s estranged children were entitled to his share of the home. They weren’t Shirley’s children. Since Mac had not expressed his wishes in a Will, Texas law declared that his children would inherit Mac’s share. The sadness returned with a vengeance. What had they done wrong? she cried.
Three children, who had not attempted to contact their father in 29 years. Children whose names Shirley did not know now owned half of her home. She did not own her own home, at least not Mac’s half, because she and Mac weren’t ready for someday to come.
You see, when someday comes intentions don’t matter. Dreams don’t determine a thing. Beliefs fade into the mysterious fog that is the law. Only what is in writing matters, when someday comes.
There was no correcting what Mac misunderstood. But Shirley’s story doesn’t have to be yours.
A GREAT PLAN
Your story can be different, if you cultivate that one key ingredient essential to every great plan. The understanding that someday is coming, none of us knows when, and the only way to be sure your future is ordered the way you want, is to meet with an estate planning attorney, tell them your story, outline what you see as your ideal future, and with their advice develop a plan. Have your attorney put it in writing.
Because someday is coming.
