Letter Of Wishes: The Most Underrated Estate Planning Document
When you make your estate plan, your main motivations are love for your family and concern for their wellbeing. This is why you have frank discussions with your doctors about what might go wrong with your health in the future and what the treatment options are, and you list your instructions in a healthcare power of attorney, so that if and when things take a turn for the worse, your spouse can just hand the doctor a document with your signature on it instead of making harrowing decisions in the moment. It is why you revised your will to disinherit your former spouse, so your children will not need to face years of legal battles with their former stepsiblings. Despite this, when you are a beneficiary of a will, love is not the thing that comes through the most clearly. Probate feels like it is all about money and legal technicalities, and the estate planning documents read like so much legal boilerplate with your name inserted at certain intervals. If you are old enough to attend a session of a probate court, you are old enough to know that love and money are not the same thing, and sometimes they are mutually exclusive. With so little room for emotions in the estate planning documents that the law requires, it is no wonder that some people write a letter of wishes to their heirs, to show the human side of their estate plan. For help with a letter of wishes and other estate planning documents, contact a Tampa estate planning lawyer.
What Good Is a Letter of Wishes If It Isn’t Legally Binding?
When you look up checklists of estate planning documents, you find documents legally enforceable by the probate court, such as your will, plus other documents that have the force of law, even though you the probate court is not the entity with the authority to enforce them; this category includes medical advance directives, trust instruments, and payable on death (POD) beneficiary designations for bank accounts, among others. A letter of wishes is not formally part of your estate plan, but it can be at least as helpful to your heirs as any of the formal documents.
As its name suggests, a letter of wishes is simply a letter to your family, the personal representative of your estate, or the trustee of your trust, explaining how you want the beneficiaries to spend the money. Of course, no one can get the court to issue an order enforcing this letter of wishes, but at least it clears up ambiguity in the minds of the recipients, whether they choose to follow your instructions or not, and it explains your reasons for your estate planning decision.
Contact David Toback About Expressing Your Wishes in Your Estate Plan
A Central Florida estate planning lawyer can help you if your estate planning documents do not tell the whole story. Contact David Toback in Tampa, Florida to set up a consultation.
Source:
kiplinger.com/retirement/letter-of-wishes-no-legal-power-but-still-powerful
