AN INHERITANCE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY: YOU’RE PASSING ON YOUR WEALTH TO YOUR KIDS, BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUR VALUES?

Planning your Florida estate?

When we get beyond the Florida money, what else are you leaving your kids?

Florida estate lawyers spend a lot of time helping Florida residents pass their wealth to beneficiaries. Family members, heirs and loved ones inherit mansions in Boca Raton, cash in Palm Beach banks, and expensive jewelry and artwork when Florida citizens pass on.

Two of the biggest aspects of estate planning by Florida probate lawyers are tax minimization and getting your wealth and property to your chosen beneficiaries. Many times, Florida property is left in a Florida trust for beneficiaries who may be minors and also for adult children and grandchildren.

Getting beyond the money……are you taking the time to leave your loved ones non-monetary benefits? Have you left your values to your family?

What’s important to you when planning your Florida estate? Sure, saving taxes is important. And, yes, wealth administration, the use of Florida trusts, both matter. But many times, Florida clients, Florida residents, want their money to be used wisely by their family members. They want money invested and used properly, and not squandered and wasted. That’s where Florida trusts come in. You can leave your property in a trust, with a Florida trustee, who can direct, or not direct, money to your beneficiaries based upon standards that you pre-determine. Want money for your grandchildren’s college tuition? No problem? Money to pay your daughter’s real estate taxes? Easy. Do you want money to go to adult children or grandchildren when they get married, buy a first house, or retire? Your trustee can take care of that.

But have you left a moral blue print for your beneficiaries of your Florida trust? Do you want your family members to hold a full time job? Worried that if you leave too much wealth, your kids or heirs will grow lazy in the Florida sun?

What can you do to pass on your values, your ethics, your morals to your estate beneficiaries? Can you condition your Florida trust money on those values?

Here are three things you can do to try to leave more than just money to your family, and beneficiaries:

1. Draft your trust with instructions and your intent and desires. Go ahead and tell us what your values and morals are right there in the trust document. Guide your trustee so they know under what circumstances they can give money to your family when you are gone. Can your trustee give money to a trust beneficiary who is creating a start up company after getting a Harvard MBA? That may be fine, but what about the slacker grandchild who wants money to go to Costa Rica and surf for a few years? Spell it out in your Florida trust document. Tell your Florida probate lawyer or your Florida lawyer who writes your will or trust that you want to spell it out.
2. Talk to your kids and grandkids. It’s often hard to do, but speak to them. Enunciate your values verbally.
3. Consider a family wealth summit where you convene all your loved ones and beneficiaries and your Florida estate attorney and Florida trustee. Let your family know how you want your money spent, and not mis-spent, when you are gone. Set forth what’s important to you and what values you want to leave to your family members: including those descedants who may be on the way but not born yet, like grandchildren and great grandchildren. You can even put down in writing your intent and values, and give those writings to your trustee so he or she can see what your intent and state of mind are…..and what you value.  Keep your values alive years after you are gone.  Keep those writings in the family and hand them down over the years.

Pass on your wealth that includes not just money, but also your ethics and values. You only get one chance to do this.