{"id":1476,"date":"2019-03-27T23:57:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sanjoseelderlaw.com\/?p=133"},"modified":"2021-09-05T18:26:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T01:26:36","slug":"not-talking-about-estate-planning-is-more-expensive-than-it-sounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/not-talking-about-estate-planning-is-more-expensive-than-it-sounds\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Talking About Estate Planning Is More Expensive Than It Sounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/estate-planning\/\">Estate planning<\/a>, like politics and religion, is one of those topics people tend to avoid in polite conversation. There can be many reasons for this. Some people are superstitious and believe that <a href=\"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/estate-planning\/wills\/\">making a will<\/a> or setting up a living trust will cause something terrible to happen to them. Others don\u2019t want to face uncomfortable family conflicts.<\/p>\n<p>In our practice, we\u2019ve talked to adult children whose parents won\u2019t talk about their estate. We\u2019ve also counseled parents whose adult children can\u2019t bear to start talking about what happens when their beloved parents are gone. However, it\u2019s incredibly important that everyone be on the same page about a loved one\u2019s wishes. We\u2019ve all read books or seen movies where the main conflict of the story comes from shady finagling over a relative\u2019s estate. Don\u2019t let your family play out that drama in real life.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>A Living Trust Can Make Things Easier on the Family<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>When you\u2019re anxious to start talking about estate planning, but other family members aren\u2019t, there are some resources that might help you.<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-bottom:20px;\">\n<li>To start the conversation, plan a time of relative calm and peace. It might help to begin in a neutral location.<\/li>\n<li>Use \u201cI\u201d statements to avoid seeming to attack your loved one. An adult child might say, \u201cI want to be sure I know how to carry out your wishes when you\u2019re gone.\u201d A parent might say, \u201cI want you to understand how I plan to take care of my estate and how I plan to leave things to you kids.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>If the main issue is not knowing where to start, consider purchasing the \u201cWhat if\u2026Workbook\u201d. This takes families through all sorts of questions about estate planning in an easy, step-by-step way. A quick online search will bring up similar resources.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Tell stories. Did you know that when the actor Heath Ledger died, his will left everything to his parents even though he had a young daughter? He did have a $10 million life insurance policy with her as the beneficiary, so it\u2019s not clear whether he meant to leave her out of the will or not. What a painful thing to have to deal with, on top of the grief of losing a young man so unexpectedly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A New York Times article from a few years ago tells the story of a women who hadn\u2019t discussed her finances with her adult children. She <a href=\"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/now-is-the-time-to-create-or-review-your-estate-plan\/\">died unexpectedly<\/a>, and it took a long time for the authorities to issue a death certificate. In the meantime, her children had a terrible time doing simple things like closing her cable TV account or paying her mortgage.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019d like more resources for starting a discussion about estate planning, please give our office a call. This is something we\u2019ve helped many families with, and we\u2019re happy to help you, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On behalf of Lisa Bryant of The Law Offices of Lisa C. Bryant, Inc. posted in Estate Planning on Monday, April 10th, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Estate planning, like politics and religion, is one of those topics people tend to avoid in polite conversation. There can be many reasons for this&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-home","category-estate-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2900,"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryantelderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}