“I love all you children equally,” is an expression parents often use when one child asks who their favorite is. The child usually accepts this response and family life feels fair – until the child grows into an adult and is surprised to discover that mom didn’t express her love very equally in her will. In the work we do for clients in trust and estate planning, we have come across many unequal wills. Sometimes they work well. But it is not uncommon for unequal wills to cause family strife. So we typically encourage clients to carefully contemplate the potential outcome(s) of their last wishes and often point to a cautionary tale or two.
Say the family patriarch had three adult sons — two well-off and married and one a perennial wanderer. His youngest son had basically always struggled with life and was still living in his father’s home when his father passed away in his 90s after a fall. A retired accountant, the father had planned his estate carefully since he wanted to be sure that his resident child would be provided for. Accordingly, half of his estate went into a trust for the youngest son and the remaining 50% was split evenly between the two “successful” sons. The father, not wanting to upset his older sons, made sure to tell them about his plans in advance and gave them an opportunity to object, which they did not. Actually, they readily agreed to this division. However, when the will was read, the youngest son was taken by surprise. Instead of being grateful for his larger inheritance, he only saw unfairness – his father still didn’t trust him. In a short amount of time, his resentment toward his father and his “trusted” brothers grew and eventually tore their relationship apart. As a result, he didn’t speak to his brothers for over 20 years.
Although the father’s will did not start a family feud even remotely close to the magnitude of the Hatfields and the McCoys, it certainly created a lasting legacy of jealousy and bitterness. If we could transcend the constraints of time, we would encourage the father to rethink his unequal arrangement from all angles and viewpoints.
