You advise and document estate plans for clients. You’re meticulous about detail and always do a thorough job. Is there anything you’ve overlooked?

Likely not when it comes to estate assets – but what about the softer, quality of life advice related to the family and estate of your clients? A few actions can not only smooth out the estate settlement process but also enhance the life of your clients today.

Here are five actions that all of us should consider before we die.

Tell your family your estate intentions

We’ve said it before: people can’t read minds and they don’t know what they don’t know. There can be many good reasons for the unequal treatment of family members under a will (such as a disability) but unequal can equate to “unloved” unless it’s explained. Before you put the final touches to your estate documents, let your family members know what you intend to do, and work out any issues now, because you won’t be around to work them out after you’re gone.

Pay for an extended family trip

Travel brings people out of their comfort zone and creates interaction that would otherwise never occur. It may not be all love and honey – family dynamics are what they are – but you may be pleasantly surprised at what happens when your adult children and their families interact outside of their day-to-day lives. The challenge of bringing people together can seem overwhelming, but it’s a challenge worth tackling. It doesn’t have to be an African safari (although those are great if you can afford it). Just make it two nights or longer at a place that’s away from anyone’s family home, cottage or chalet. If they can drop all plans and attend your funeral (they surely will), they can create time for a family trip that mom or dad wants.

Give some gifts during your lifetime

We all know the saying “you can’t take it with you.” As much as we believe it, it can be hard to act on it because we all (secretly) think we’ll live forever. But we won’t, and there’s joy in sharing now. So as the song says, “let it go”, or at least let some of it go. If you have surplus wealth, or surplus assets of value – such as artwork that will never fit in a newly downsized space – you can bring and experience great happiness in sharing things now, rather than after you’re gone.

Record some early memories

You’ve likely experienced this at a family gathering. You tell a simple fact about your early life and someone says: “I never knew you spent a summer in New York City.” It shouldn’t surprise any of us – our adult children can’t possibly know about the 30 or 40 years of our lives before they were born, unless we tell them.

So, record some memories – you’re bound to surprise both them and yourself with what you come up with. You can find some good tips on prompting those memories here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Record-Your-Familys-Oral-History-before-it-dies-/.

Make your funeral intentions known

It’s a hotly debated question: is a funeral for the living or for the dead? In most cases, it’s for both, which is why it makes sense to put some thought into what you envision for your funeral and then talk to your family to work towards a plan that everyone can agree on. There are different levels of pre-planning, both formal and informal, but having the wishes of you and your family documented can go a long way toward a smooth process at a difficult time. For those in Ontario, the provincial government provides a good overview of your rights related to pre-planning with a funeral service provider: https://www.ontario.ca/page/pre-plan-and-pre-pay-final-arrangements.

Thank you for reading!
Ian Hull