How to Avoid Estate and Inheritance Fights

Everyone has heard a version of the same sad story: siblings feuding over their parents' belongings, or children clashing with a stepparent over the family home or savings. It's a painful way for a family to come apart.

You may well believe your own family would never behave this way, and you might be right. Most families never end up in a courtroom fighting over an inheritance. But grief doesn't always bring out people's best side, and a few thoughtful steps taken now can go a long way toward keeping the peace later.

This overview draws on guidance from Mary Randolph, J.D., UC Berkeley School of Law.

• Pick the right executor
• Skip the surprises
• Talk to your lawyer on your own
• Keep your plans current
• Be careful about adding co-owners
• Offer direction on sentimental items

Pick the right executor

Plenty of parents assume the eldest child should automatically serve as executor, even when that person isn't especially suited to the role. It's worth setting that assumption aside and choosing based on who is honest, organized, dependable, and communicates well. Beneficiaries tend to stay calmer and more trusting when the executor keeps them informed along the way.

Skip the surprises

Consider the people who end up blindsided after a loved one dies: the daughter left out when the china goes to someone else, the son who receives a smaller share than his siblings, the favorite niece who isn't mentioned in the will at all. Their reaction usually isn't about greed. It's hurt, confusion, and the frustration of never understanding why things turned out the way they did. And hurt feelings have a way of curdling into suspicion and resentment.

You can head this off by sharing as many of your decisions as you're comfortable with while you're still here to explain them. Maybe the china goes to your brother's daughter because her side of the family has nothing else from your mother. Maybe your son inherits less because you already paid for his graduate degree. Maybe your niece should pick out a keepsake, even if it's never written into the will. A little explanation prevents a lot of hard feelings. Your relatives don't have to agree with your choices — they're your choices to make, not theirs to vote on — but if they see the decisions were made deliberately, not out of carelessness or spite, most arguments never get off the ground.

Talk to your lawyer on your own

When you work with an attorney on your estate plan, keep that relationship free of outside pressure. Choose someone recommended by people whose judgment you trust, rather than an attorney who has also represented someone you plan to name in your will.

Meet with the lawyer privately. It's fine if a relative or friend drives you to the appointment, but the actual conversation should happen without an audience. You need room to say what you really want, even if it might upset someone, and your lawyer needs confidence that you're speaking your own mind rather than performing for whoever is in the room.

Keep your plans current

The standard advice is to revisit your will, trust, and beneficiary forms every few years, or after a major change like a marriage, a new child, a divorce, or the death of someone you'd named as a beneficiary. That's sound advice, since documents left untouched for years rarely reflect what you'd actually want today. There's a second benefit too: staying engaged with your own planning makes it much harder for anyone to later claim you were pressured into decisions that weren't really yours.

If you meet privately and regularly with your lawyer, banker, or accountant about your affairs, they can vouch, if it ever comes up, that you stayed on top of your finances and adjusted your plans as your life changed. Paperwork created under those conditions is difficult to challenge. Compare that to an elderly person who hadn't updated a will in 25 years and was brought to an unfamiliar attorney's office by a relative who happened to be the main beneficiary — that will is a far easier target for a legal challenge.

Be careful about adding co-owners

Many people add an adult child to a checking account simply so that child can write checks or help manage the money. But in most cases, adding someone as a co-owner gives that person full legal ownership, including the right to keep whatever's left in the account after the original owner dies. That's a recipe for conflict: the other children may expect the balance to be shared, while the one named as co-owner legally inherits all of it.

Better options exist. You can grant someone you trust a power of attorney, which lets them manage the account on your behalf, or in some states set up a convenience account, which also lets your chosen person write checks for you. Either arrangement legally obligates that person to act in your interest, and neither one automatically hands them the money when you die.

Learn more about convenience accounts and financial powers of attorney.

Offer direction on sentimental items

Many wills simply state that personal belongings and household items should be divided among beneficiaries "in equal shares," without saying how that should actually happen. Who ends up sorting through everything? Who decides what counts as an equal share when the items in question don't have a clear dollar value?

Spare your family that guesswork by giving them some direction. You might name particular items outright in your will, hand the task of dividing belongings to your executor, or leave instructions for how your children should settle disputes over anything they can't agree on, such as running an auction among themselves.

Find more guidance on passing down items with sentimental value.