Beneficiaries often assume that an estate plan will divide assets evenly. If a parent has four children, they all expect to receive roughly 25 percent of the estate. In many cases, this is exactly what happens.
It is important to understand when you are creating your estate plan that you don’t necessarily have to split everything in a perfectly equal fashion. You can make unequal bequests. There are many reasons why you may want to divide things as you see fit rather than perfectly evenly.
Disputes may arise
The biggest thing to remember about unequal bequests is that they can cause estate disputes. In some cases, a beneficiary may even try to challenge the estate plan. They cannot challenge it just because they received less money than others, but they may claim that the reason they received less was due to undue influence, lack of testamentary capacity, or something of this nature.
Additionally, even if the unequal bequests do not lead to an estate dispute in court, they can lead to conflicts among beneficiaries. Two adult children may find themselves at odds if one of them received far more assets than the other.
The best way to circumvent this is often just to talk about the bequests in advance, explaining to beneficiaries both what they should expect, and why you have made these decisions. This way, they are not taken by surprise and, if they have an issue with that distribution, they can talk about it with you directly.
No matter how you decide to split up your assets, planning is crucial. Be sure you know what steps to take as you draft your estate plan. Having experienced estate planning guidance can be very valuable.