Estate Planning 101: Beneficiary Complexities

When it comes to estate planning, second marriages bring issues to what happens when distributing your property. People that have been married more than once might have issues with coming up with the right beneficiaries. The current spouse might end up not getting what they deserve if you don’t plan your estate well.If all the marriages gave raise to kids, the situation becomes direr.

Additionally, the individual circumstances vary greatly from one family to the other, usually depending on the connection between the family members. The needs for the different families might end up colliding, which means you need to do your best to reconcile the families before your demise.

The major issue is how to balance provision for all families. Make sure your spouse and ex-spouses are taken care of as well as your kids, according to the law.

When it comes to leaving your property to your family, chances are that you might distribute the property unequally between family members. This is acceptable by law; the only issue that might arise is what the beneficiaries think about it.It might be ok with the parent to do this, but for the children that are receiving the estate, it becomes a huge issue because the one receiving the smaller share might feel as if they don’t belong to the family at all.

At times, a huge part of estate planning is all about knowing that conflicts might arise, especially regarding distribution of the property.

If you haven’t legalized your marriage, then you don’t have the right to inherit the property of your partner. The good thing is that you can leave your property to whoever you want without getting issues from your partner. You can use a will to do this.

For many people, this is usually an emotional time because family members will want to contest the will to show that they deserve more than what they have been given.

This is why a will is required in this situation to prove that the person was mentally capable to come up with the estate plan.

When you have a gift, it is acceptable to name more than one beneficiary for the gift. This way, the people that are left behind will be able to find a way to coexist when sharing the gift. For instance:

I leave the business premises to my kids as follows:

• 20% to Anne
• 30% to Dennis
• 15% to Lexa
• 25% to Bernard
• 10% to Ronald

This will guide on how the gift is shared. After this, you need to come up with rules of handling the estate. You can direct the executor to sale the gift and then divide the proceeds among the beneficiaries in the specified percentages. The beneficiaries can also share the ownership of the property going forward.

However simple it might seem, it raises a few issues. First, it needs to be understood how the beneficiaries will share the control of the estate. Secondly, one of the beneficiaries might want to sell and another one might want to retain the property, leading to feuds.

Allow the beneficiaries to maintain ownership if you believe there won’t be any conflicts among them.

If you wish to leave a gift of shared ownership, make sure you talk to a lawyer to come up with the right terms and choose the best form of ownership. Come up with riles to govern various facets of ownership including disputes and more.

Controlling your gifts can be tough, but one of the best ways to do this is to use a trust. However, you need to know that you cannot control the property for multiple generations.

Many issues arise when it comes to handing your property to your beneficiaries. Make sure you get the right lawyer to guide you in what to do and how to do it. Remember that the directives you give to your beneficiaries need to be feasible.