Creating an estate plan is a significant step toward ensuring that your wishes are carried out and your loved ones are taken care of. However, there’s another crucial step many people overlook: discussing your estate plan with family. While it may seem uncomfortable, having this conversation can prevent misunderstandings, reduce potential conflicts, and give your loved ones peace of mind.

As a parent, you’re likely hoping to leave your children an inheritance. In fact, doing so may be one of the motivating factors driving your life’s work. But without taking the proper precautions, the wealth you pass on is at serious risk of being accidentally lost or squandered. In some instances, an inheritance can even wind up doing your kids more harm than good.

If you’re a parent, you may feel even more guilty than usual. If so, you are definitely not alone. Currently, the burden is on you to both carry on with your work and manage your child’s full-time care and education. Two full-time jobs that you’re trying to do by yourself, likely without teachers or care providers to help you.

Today, we want to FOCUS on one of the major RISKS of not being “in the KNOW” when it comes to your PARENTS’ ESTATE planning MATTERS: the undue INFLUENCE of bad ACTORS.

If YOU or your PARENTS have a RETIREMENT account, (or any investment accounts for that matter) NOW is the TIME to get CONNECTED to how those ACCOUNTS are INVESTED. While you may have OUTSOURCED all of this to a BROKER in the PAST, YOU can NO longer AFFORD to ALLOW your INVESTMENTS to be made WITHOUT your clear UNDERSTANDING of exactly WHAT you are INVESTING in, HOW and whether YOUR investments ALIGN with your PLANS for the FUTURE.

In many FAMILIES, MONEY still is not a typical dinner table DISCUSSION, but we think it should be. Surprisingly, this is especially true when it comes to affluent PARENTS. And, we HOPE to CHANGE it because one of the most IMPORTANT things you can do is TALK to your KIDS (and your parents) about MONEY.

Do your PARENTS have an estate PLAN? Is it up to DATE? No matter how RICH or POOR you or your parents are, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, YOU need to be ASKING these and several other QUESTIONS. When your parents become INCAPACITATED or DIE, their AFFAIRS will become your RESPONSIBILITY , and it will be IMPOSSIBLE to ASK them to CLARIFY anything. So, if you do not know whether or not they have estate planning in place that will help you best support them, read on.

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