Ken Moraif  

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Retirement Planners of America Podcast. And this time we’re going to talk about something in the estate planning world, which we call leaving to your greedy, unwashed, undeserving heirs the fruits of your labor. And this time we’re going to talk about how to leave more to one child than another and and what’s the psychology behind that? How is it received? And how should you do it if you want to? Okay, so I’m going to start off with just telling you a quick story. A friend of mine is essentially an estate planning attorney, and so because of that, you know, his family gets free estate planning right from their attorney, brother or child, and his mom said, I want you to write into my will that you don’t get anything, and it all goes to your brother because your brother is a school teacher, and he’s not doing very well, and you are doing great, and you don’t need the money, to which he responded, No, I’m not doing that, Mom, I’m sorry. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna actually write a document to uninherit or disinherit myself. I’m not doing that. So the dynamic of that is, is interesting, but, but here’s the concept that you know, after doing this for gosh, I hate to admit it, 30 years, what I’ve come to is that your children, your heirs, are going to equate if you decide to leave more to one child than another, they don’t see it as money. They see it as love units. Okay, so for example, let’s say you have two kids, and you decide to give 70% to one of them, and 30% to the other. Well, basically, what you did was you gave 70 love units to this one, and 30 love units to that one, and the one that got the 30 love units. You know what they’re thinking, Mom and Dad did not love me. They love my brother or my sister more than me, and they’re upset about it, and they will carry it for years. I’ve seen it. So if you think in terms of love units, if you think in terms of, you know, you don’t want that to be the case, because if you haven’t taken care of that in advance, what’s going to happen is, you know, just like you see all these movies where they have the reading of the will, right, and everybody shows up, and nobody knows what’s in it, and then all of a sudden they find out, and then they all start having all these wars with each other and all this stuff, and it turns into all kinds of drama. That’s what you’re doing. If they find out that they’re going to get a smaller amount of love units than their brother or sister, they’re going to carry that they’re going to have resentment family wars, potentially maybe even questioning your will and saying, You know what? That was, not what Mom and Dad told me, it can create all kinds of issues. So here’s the advice. What I would recommend, if you are going to do that, is to first of all, have a meeting, talk to the child that you are basically giving less to, and explain to them. You know, this is my plan, and that way they can have buy in now they don’t necessarily have to agree with you. They may disagree with that plan, but at least they know in advance. You don’t want them to resent you posthumously, right? You’re all, you’re dead, and now their memory of you is that you gave them less love units, and they resent you for the rest of their lives. You want to head it off at the pass, have a family meeting, or individually, however you deem is best dynamic for your family, but talk with them about, you know, this is why I’m going to do it, and you’d be surprised. You know, I’ve had, I’ve recommended that to multiple clients who said that, and when they had the conversation with the child that was going to get less, the child that was going to get less said, No, I don’t want you to do that. That’s not fair. You know, my brother should get the same amount as me, so you’d be surprised. What happens if you involve them in the conversation, and you’ll avoid the whole issue of love units being disproportionately handed out. Now, let me just say, if you love one child more than another, then maybe you just do that. But usually that’s not the case. So I hope this helps. I hope this found you healthy, wealthy and wise, and we’ll talk soon.