Family Wealth Discussion — Is It a Good Idea?

Clients often wonder: should they tell their family about their assets and estate plan? A family wealth discussion can be a tense experience or a joyous occasion. Of course, they can also be everything in between. To be clear, there’s no legal reason you have to explain your estate plan or disclose your wealth to family members. There’s also no legal reason not to do so. Some, but not all, clients decide to engage in a family discussion. Privacy considerations may be more important than disclosure for some clients. In this podcast episode, we talk about some of the positives and negatives. Our bottom line: you will have to decide whether you want to share information, and how much. Will it be by a letter you write to family? How about an in-person meeting? If a client decides to engage in a family wealth discussion, we can help you with goals, procedures and a proposed agenda. Of course, these are unusual times, calling for unusual approaches.