A Wish Is Worth a Thousand Legal Documents

During your first few meetings with an estate planning lawyer, you talk a lot about your wishes, and usually you come away from the meetings feeling inspired and optimistic about your retirement, even if your lawyer persuades you to trade your far-fetched dreams for more realistic plans. Eventually, though, it is time to start drafting documents that will help prevent your worst fears from coming true and will help your realistic plans come to fruition. By the time you have written a will and a trust instrument, they sound a lot more like legal boilerplate than they do like the wishes, dreams, and fears that made you embark on the estate planning journey in the first place. The fact that you went to all the trouble of designating your relatives, and perhaps even some friends, as beneficiaries of your will or of a trust should send the message that you care about them, but wills and trust instruments do not tell the whole story about the motivations of the testator or grantor. Therefore, you might decide to write a letter of wishes, which can shed light on matters not addressed directly in your estate planning documents, even though the letter of wishes itself is not a legally binding document. For help reading your estate planning documents to get insights into what you want to say in your letter of wishes, contact a Dade City estate planning lawyer.

How the Letter of Wishes Saved Probate

Your will should indicate which beneficiaries receive which assets from your estate. Indicating, in the text of your will, what you want the beneficiaries to do with the money, almost always leads to trouble. Even if it does not result in legal complications, it stains the generous act of giving an inheritance, because there are strings attached.

A letter of wishes is a better venue for your wishes about how you hope the beneficiary will benefit from the inheritance. Even better, you can revise your letter of wishes as many times as you want, whereas updating your will requires you to formalize every new version of the will with witness signatures.

How the Letter of Wishes Saved Trust Fund Babies From Themselves

In a trust instrument, you can be more specific than you can in a will about how you want the trustee to spend the money. Despite this, a trust instrument is all about laws and money, not about emotions. To explain your motivations, you should write a letter of wishes to the beneficiaries. It could also be helpful to write a letter of wishes to the trustees, too. While letters of wishes do not have the force of law on their own, it is possible to use them as evidence in court to support a particular interpretation of a will or a trust instrument.

Contact a Florida Estate Planning Attorney About Estate Planning According to Your Wishes

An estate planning attorney can help you prevent conflict over your estate by drafting a letter of wishes.  Contact The Law Office of Laurie R. Chane in Dade City, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

kiplinger.com/retirement/letter-of-wishes-no-legal-power-but-still-powerful