After a life filled with success and accolades, 95-year-old Stan Lee — famous comic-book writer, editor, film executive producer and publisher — surely didn’t want his sunset years to devolve into a nightmare of conflict and betrayal more fitting for one of his films than for real life. Since losing his wife, Joan, last year, Lee has been locked in battle both with family and associates over his financial affairs, all while struggling with failing health. His 67-year-old daughter, J.C., is but one of a cast of characters whom Lee says have “bad intentions.”
Lee’s ordeal shows that “intentions” can evolve in unexpected ways over time as family members’ expectations and financial interests change. And his example is all too familiar to estate planning attorneys and financial professionals — although his is more shocking and public than most cases. In fact, money-management firm TD Wealth surveyed 109 attendees of the 52nd Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning in 2018 to find out what kept them up at night, and discovered that family conflict was number one on their list.
“Forty-four percent of planning professionals identified family conflict as the biggest threat to estate planning this year, followed by tax reform (25 percent) and market volatility (12 percent),” reported Wealth Management Magazine. The survey also revealed that 53 percent of respondents identified guardian and beneficiary designations as “the most difficult document for clients to tackle when building an estate plan” — followed by current wills (17 percent) and powers of attorney (16 percent).
While the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which had just become law in December 2017, was prominent in the mind of the Heckerling Institute participants who responded to the TD Wealth survey, any estate planning lawyer who’s been practicing for as long as we have at SmolenPlevy recognizes the potential for family conflict inherent in planning. But the conflicts that can happen during estate planning pale in comparison to those that tend to arise when a family fails to plan at all.
“Making important decisions while a person is still alive is obviously tough for a lot of people,” says Jason Smolen, an estate-planning attorney and founding principal of SmolenPlevy. “Estate planning can prevent so much strife and uncertainty for a family, though, that it is by far the most responsible and compassionate course of action.”
Human nature usually makes people reluctant to even think about the what-ifs in life. That’s all the more true for families in which relationships are complicated.
“Family dynamics can be tricky,” observes Daniel Ruttenberg, a SmolenPlevy principal specializing in estate planning and estate administration. “There are no neutral parties within a family. Everyone is emotionally involved and everyone has an opinion. That’s why you really need highly skilled and experienced professionals providing support.”
Luckily, family conflicts don’t always make the headlines — as in Lee’s unfolding tragedy — but they can be minimized by good planning, with heart-to-heart family discussions facilitated by an estate law expert.
Estate planning does more than simply divvy up a person’s belongings. It sends a powerful message to everyone in the family: “All of you are loved, all of you are important, and this is how we stay connected for generations to come.”
The post When Family Members Collide: Smart Estate Planning Can Prevent Epic Battles appeared first on SmolenPlevy.