Estate Planning as a Career

If you currently have a trust, or are thinking of setting one up, this checklist from my book, The 7 Biggest Mistakes Trustees Make and How to Avoid Them, will show you what the most common and serious mistakes are and how to avoid them.

Each one of these seven mistakes has the potential to ruin your financial plans and to turn family members against each other. Here they are in brief:

Mistake #1 - Failure to Communicate: Failing to communicate properly with all the parties involved with the trust is, perhaps, the biggest mistake trustees make. From my experience, parents must deal with three important predicaments before considering advanced planning:

1.Do we have enough money to last the rest of our lives?

2.Do I want my spouse to know all the financial details of the estate?

3.Do we want our children to know all the financial details of the estate?

I have also found that once planning takes place, children must also deal with two common reservations:

1.I don’t feel I should interfere with my parents’ finances.

2.If I take an interest, will I be perceived as being greedy?

Through my experience, families that avoid mistake #1 have a foundation that is able to withstand almost any type of problem in the future.

Mistake #2 - Failure to Hire the Appropriate Advisors: Estate planning is a growing sector that is becoming more complex with its constant changes. Every year laws are revised and added. It’s important that when it comes to making important financial decisions that you consult professional advice from a team made up of: attorneys, accountants, and financial planners.

Mistake #3 - Failure to Follow the UPIA: This mistake is more legal in nature than the previous two. It involves the UPIA, or, more specifically, the lack of knowledge of it. UPIA stands for Uniform Prudent Investor Act. Do (more…)