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The manner in which you leave your estate will have a significant impact on your heirs. Besides distributing your assets, an estate plan can be used to communicate values and character. What do you want to communicate?
The inheritance that you leave your heirs is not only material, but also spiritual. If you plan to leave significant wealth to your children, make sure sufficient time has been spent instilling biblical wisdom on how to handle resources. The key is to verbalize your values while you are living, teaching your heirs to be productive and not consumptive.
Consider giving some assets early, before death, to assist with this training process. Passing an entire estate to children may not be wise in all cases.
We have found that family conferences can be an effective forum for intergenerational dialogue, acting as a training tool for the next generation as well as promoting family harmony.
There are many reasons why wealth transfer is such a difficult task. These include, helping heirs without harming them, sibling rivalry, managing the expectations of heirs, providing for a spouse, providing for the Kingdom, succession of a business, desiring to finish strong, legal and tax complexity, uncertain timing.
We believe strongly that you should never use money to manipulate behavior, change lifestyle, destroy the need to provide, come between a husband and wife, come between parents and children, get in God's way of dealing with your children.
We also believe and teach the following three convictions: 1) Wealth transfer is different from estate planning in that it begins now and considers the impact on the beneficiary as its primary objective, 2) Wealth transfer is the last stewardship decision that God permits me to make, and 3) A beneficiary should never be surprised by the decisions of the steward.
For additional information, or to schedule an appointment, call Bill Prichard at 636-861-7100.