“I make my living off of people who never would that did.”

One of the challenges of working as an estate planning attorney is convincing clients that their loved ones are capable of some pretty terrible things. Whether it’s trying to make a person executing a Power of Attorney understand that the person that they choose can literally take all of their money out of the bank if they want, or explaining to parents that even though their kids get along now, one of them certainly could challenge their will and bog down the family in litigation for years.

We don’t like to contemplate that our loved ones would ignore or even directly contradict our interests and instead act in their own. Yet that happens regularly. If it does happens, it is devastating for everyone. The best way to deter it is with careful planning ahead of time. Part of that planning includes candid reflection about the person or persons that are included in your estate plan.

I often use the above phrase when talking to hesitant clients about this situation. I tell them about the dangers of failing to take potential bad deeds into account, and inevitably I hear “Oh my family would never do anything like that.” My response is to tell them that nearly every case I have comes from a situation where someone did the last thing anybody expected them to.

When determining your estate plan, it is important to realize that you MUST take into account that sometimes the unexpected happens. You are hurting your loved ones more than helping them by not planning or even considering that sometimes those you think never would….absolutely will.