(Un)popular Opinion: You are Responsible for Your Estate
It is often said that we live in the information age, that our access to information is unprecedented.
If you think about it, the printing press was invented around 1450, but it would take 400 years to mass produce affordable books.
The technology behind the Internet had its beginnings in the 1960’s but it emerged just over 20 years later in 1983. And, only a little over 10 years after that, the first phones capable of accessing the Internet hit the market.
Now, just four decades later the content available on the Internet – largely for free – has mushroomed into trillions of gigabytes of data.
We now live in a world where we no longer rely solely on professionals for access to information. We have the luxury of access to just about all the information we could want, often instantaneously.
But there’s always a catch, right?
Having access to tons of information means we have to be discerning – we have to be able to sift the good stuff out of the garbage. Because the Internet is still the wild west.
Estate planning is no different; there’s tons of information out there to be consumed but not all of it is good and it is not always clear what information is applicable to you.
That’s the beauty of hiring a good estate planning attorney. They are responsible for understanding your unique situation and forming a plan for it. And they’re also required to attend continuing training as part of maintaining their law license.
None of this sounds unpopular…
Wellll…. Even when you do hire an attorney, you’re still responsible for keeping watch over your own estate.
Attorneys are hired for discrete period of time. There’s a start date and an end date. The practice of law would be completely unmanageable if attorneys had to trail after all their clients to assure plans remained up to date forever.
The fact is, the only person who knows when your circumstances change…is YOU.
Only you know when you’ve had a birth, death, or divorce in the family that changes your plan. Only you know when you’ve gotten a health diagnoses that means you need to plan for long term care, or when you’ve received a large inheritance, or when your employment situation changes.
Only you know when you’ve had a change of heart, or when you no longer trust someone, or when someone new comes into your life that you do trust.
This information lives only in your mind.
Unfortunately, not knowing Isn’t an Easy Out
Because we have access to all this information, not knowing something is becoming a less acceptable excuse.
How many times have you found yourself or someone you know saying something like, “Did you Google it?” or “Did you look it up online?”
Missed opportunities and mistakes in estate planning can have very real, even severe consequences. I fully understand estate planning is not the most interesting or comfortable topic. We all have obligations and desires that compete for our attention and time, resources that have very real limits.
What I am saying is that we all need to make enough space in our lives so that we may exercise good judgment. That applies to everything, including estate planning.
Yes, of course there are bad actors out there, and yes people do make mistakes. But the far more likely source of problems in estate administration is either no plan at all or poor planning. These decisions are difficult to make even under the best of circumstances, and delaying often takes options off the table.
The Takeaway
Don’t be afraid to do some research and ask your attorney questions. At the end of the day, the people you leave behind will thank you for paying attention to the details.