How To Start A Conversation With Your Parents About Estate Planning

Life is unpredictable.

Talking to your parents about estate planning is a smart move, regardless of their age and condition. It can help make the probate process faster and easier, and prevent family conflict when the inevitable happens.

If you’re having trouble opening the dialogue, you’re not alone. In Fidelity’s 2014 Intra-Family Generational Finance Study,about 41% of parents and adult children have not had detailed discussions about estate planning. It’s a difficult conversation to start, and it’s even harder to sit down and have a long, in-depth talk.

Depending on your relationship with your parents, you may be worried about coming off as greedy, nosey, disrespectful, or just plain gloomy.

We’ve put together some tips to help you start the conversation with compassion so you can prove that your heart is in the right place.

Introduce The Topic Strategically

Remember when you used to make sure Mom was in a good mood before you asked her for money to go to the movies? She’s still the same lady.

If you feel unsure about outright asking your parents about their finances, ease into the topic by discussing your own estate plans or those of a friend in a similar situation, or ask them for their opinions on an article or book about estate planning.

It’s fine to discuss less-sensitive details over email or Facebook if you can’t always speak in person. You can always print out your messages for future reference, and, more importantly, you can use cute emoticons to lighten the conversation.

Do Your Homework First

Financial planner Michelle Higgins recommends creating a “to-do” list of topics to discuss with your parents. If they’re short on time or attention or want to change the subject, you’ll need to keep the conversations short. By drafting a list of topics to cover, you’ll find it easier to stay on track.

Some topics to discuss:

• People to contact in case of emergency

• Income and assets, and how they’ll be distributed

• Business ownership

• Insurance policies

• Investments, and how they’ll be inherited

• If estate documents exist, and if so, where they’re stored

• How often these documents are revised

• Arrangements for pets and any dependents

• Funeral arrangements

Get The Whole Family Involved

If you speak to your parents about their estate without consulting your siblings, it could appear as though you’re working to secure your own inheritance rather than planning ahead.

Estate planning should be a family conversation. Families who discuss these issues openly can tackle awkward issues head-on, preventing messy probate feuds. In the NYTimes article linked above, lawyer Berger mentions his client, a mother who wanted to leave her son a larger inheritances than his siblings because he had the most children.

She changed her plans when her son insisted on an equal share – he’d rather receive a smaller inheritance than deal with the wrath of his siblings!

An open dialogue about estate planning will allow you and your family to understand your parents’ reasons for their decisions, and give everyone a chance to be heard. It might be difficult to get the whole family together at once, but the effort can spare your family a lot of grief later on.

Bring Mom and Dad To Create Their Estate Documents!

If your parents are procrastinating because they think this stuff is too hard – show them otherwise!

Creating wills, living trusts and other estate documents is easy and affordable at NextGenJustice. Just bring the folks to any of our locations in Florida and New York.

Derek Distenfield is CEO and Co-founder of NextGenJustice which offers legal and tax solutions without lawyers in four main areas: family, business, estate, and tax preparation. More articles can be found at https://nextgenjustice.com/blog/.