Death and Dying

As an estate planner, I frequently have to discuss the topics of death and disability. These topics can be extremely uncomfortable for people (and on top of that I ask people to pay me for the privilege of this discussion). I recently learned a good lesson from my four year old about the fear of dying.
First, just a few days ago (and totally out of the blue), she told me “Daddy, I don’t want you to get killed.” I replied “me neither” and we had no more to say about that topic.

Just a few days later, Grace told me that she had to tell me something. She put her hands on my cheeks and said “Daddy, I love you. Will you promise something? When you die and are in heaven, you watch me, ok. I will be old when I get there, but when I get there we can love each other forever and ever, ok?“

I was of course a little surprised and had an immediate dread that something was coming for me and this was my omen. She then made me laugh when she said, “write it down ok, so you don’t forget.”

After some reflection I learned a lesson from Grace. She is too young to harbor all the fears and concerns our society has about death. Perhaps it is something (especially those of us who are Christians) should feel comfortable discussing and perhaps we should even embrace it. By the way, Grace, I will watch you.

Do I Need These Long Documents?

Some of the most frequent questions I receive from clients involve the length of my legal documents. These include: Why is my document so long? I do not understand all these fancy legal words, can you take them out? Do you charge by the word?

I can understand a client’s frustration, in particular when other Wills they may have seen consisted of one or two pages and were quite “straightforward.” I have reviewed many of these very simple Wills and although many are not legally wrong, they approach the concept of estate planning from a different school of thought.

My documents are relatively straightforward too, but I include a lot of additional provisions that are designed to make the administration of the estate or trust as efficient as possible. In reality, we may only use 10% of the language in one of my documents to administer an estate. The other 90% is there to address circumstances or unique situations that may arise in the future.

For example, I include a provision stating that if a remote beneficiary is under age 21, then any assets passing to that beneficiary will be held in trust. The plan does not initially anticipate that assets will pass to one of these remote beneficiaries, but because it could happen, it is prudent to address this eventuality.

There is of course a rational limit to planning for eventualities. If an occurrence is really remote, then it may not be worth addressing in one’s documents. However, every family’s circumstances are different, and one of the benefits of working with an estate planner is that he or she can help a client identify any probable eventualities that warrant inclusion in the planning documents. Even though the length and complexity of documents may annoy or frustrate a client, if one of these eventualities should arise in one’s life and the document quickly and efficiently handles it, the client will be grateful it was there.