Your Children May Inherit Your Money. Are They Prepared to Inherit the Job?
It may begin with a daughter noticing that her father paid the same bill twice. Soon, she is speaking with his accountant, checking his accounts, and trying to find the insurance policies.
The inheritance has not arrived. The responsibility has.
We talk about the “great wealth transfer” as though everything changes hands on one day. In many families, the work begins years earlier, when an adult child quietly becomes the person everyone calls about a parent’s finances.
That child has become the family’s unofficial CFO. Often, no one has explained the job.
The role no one planned for
Your children may know whom you trust to help. But does that person know where your accounts are, how your property is owned, which bills need attention, or whom to call about taxes? Do they know what you want if you need care?
Without those answers, even a capable child can spend months piecing things together during a crisis.
The strain can reach the whole family. The child doing the work feels overwhelmed. A sibling feels left out. A parent worries that accepting help means giving up control. No one has to act badly for trust to fray.
Plan for the years before an inheritance
An estate plan should do more than say who receives your assets. It should help the people you choose act when you need them.
That may mean naming someone to handle financial decisions, making sure your documents match how your assets are owned, and giving your chosen helpers a way to find the information they need. It may also mean deciding how siblings will be kept informed.
You do not have to hand over control today. You can tell your family where important information is kept, introduce a future helper to your advisers when appropriate, and explain why you chose that person. A conversation now can spare your children a painful guessing game later.
The question is not only, “Who will inherit what?”
It is, “Who will be asked to hold everything together first—and have I prepared them?”
At Reena Gulati PLLC, we help families create estate plans that work during life as well as after death. If you already know which child everyone would call in a crisis, let’s make sure that child has more than a list of questions. Contact our office to schedule an estate planning consultation.
