The Catholic Review

Estate Planning Saves Money And Prevents Family Feuds

By Jennifer Williams
Staff correspondent

Just read the parable in the Bible about the prodigal son or the story of Cain and Able and it’s apparent how easily a rivalry can develop between siblings.

As an estate planning attorney, Les Kotzer of Toronto is familiar with family feuds that develop when parents don’t plan properly or make bad assumptions when it comes to their estate.

“What I’m seeing is brothers and sisters who aren’t speaking,” said Mr. Kotzer, who co-authored the book, “The Family Fight: Planning to Avoid It.”

Mr. Kotzer is so distraught by the family rifts that develop over wills and estates, that he has committed himself to trying to save families.

“The Family Fight” is full of stories of families being destroyed over issues that could have been avoided with communication and thoughtfulness.

For one thing, the lawyer said, “Never assume good will between your children.”

“You can’t assume that one child will protect the other child,” Mr. Kotzer said.

He said it’s important to discuss with children who the executor of the will is going to be and to discuss with them what personal items they might like to have.

“Never assume your children want to inherit certain things,” Mr. Kotzer said. “Meanwhile another child might be thinking, ‘Why didn’t my mother leave that to me?’”

He said instead of defaulting to the eldest child to be the executor, ask which child would like the job or which child might be most capable.

Other issues that should be discussed ahead of time are the potential incapacity of parents and who has the power of attorney.

When it comes to wills, he said families fight just as much over memories as they do over money.

“Cash is easily divided,” Mr. Kotzer said. “But you cannot divide the trophy that dad won in 1955 or dad’s watch.” The estate attorney said he has plenty of stories that illustrate the importance of carefully drawing up a will.

“We had a woman in our parking lot one time waving a crystal vase, and saying that she drove all over town to buy that vase for her mother and that she deserved to have it,” Mr. Kotzer said. “I explained to her that she couldn’t have it because it belonged to her mother’s estate.”

The woman was so upset that she smashed the vase and shouted, “Now nobody’s going to have it.”

Greed can also rear its head, Mr. Kotzer noted.

“I had a woman (who had no family except for nieces and nephews) call me and tell me that she was going into the hospital for open-heart surgery and had said her goodbyes to her family,” Mr. Kotzer said.

The woman did not die, so she decided to have a party and invite all her nieces and nephews.

Apparently, the woman was sitting at a table and dropped her earring when she noticed a piece of tape under the table with her niece’s name on it. As she looked around her house, she noticed that there were pieces of tape under the TV, under the china, etc, containing the names of her nieces and nephews.

Mr. Kotzer said the woman went to see her lawyer the next day and left the money to the Humane Society.

While it may seem logical for parents to split everything straight down the middle, Mr. Kotzer said, “equality isn’t always fair,” and stressed the importance of communicating with children. “If one child is the caregiver and you plan to leave them more money, you need to let the other children know this so they don’t harbor resentment against the caregiver,” Mr. Kotzer said.

“Parents have to wake up to the fact that this could destroy their family.