Caroline Rupik

Straight Talk Estate Planning are very proud to announce we have partnered up with the Christchurch based MacMillan Caring Locally for their Free Wills Month, running through September 2021.

MacMillan Caring Locally is not affiliated with the well known MacMillan charity at all. It’s a not-for-profit organisation established to support the The Macmillan Unit at Christchurch Hospital. This is a Specialist Palliative Care Unit and Hospice for patients in South East Dorset and South West Hampshire.

We’ve been in contact with the team there for some time and aware of the amazing work they do and the impact they have on the lives of their patients, and the families of those patients, in their last days. The team on the unit really go above and beyond to make dreams come true where they can and those final moments as comfortable and positive as possible. You may have seen one of our directors Caroline taking part in a sponsored 12 mile walk for the unit.

We’re so happy to be able to offer this support to the unit. If you would like to know more get in touch with us here or have a look at the MacMillan page

You know you should write your will. Your family have been on at you for an age to get around to it. But somehow it just keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the pile. There’s always something nicer or more obviously pressing to think about, isn’t there? And let’s be honest, who wants to think about their impending doom?

But do we really spend time talking about your death in a will meeting? Actually, really, no.

Of course its not unusual for clients to be concerned that the grim reaper will be hanging spectrally in the corner of the room as we chat, and I’d be lying if I said there aren’t a few difficult questions I will ask you. But the truth is we don’t really talk about death.

When writing your will what you need to think about is everything that comes after.

What happens to your estate after you’ve passed away? Who will inherit your assets if you pass without a valid will in place? When? And how? And what can we put in a will to make sure that who you want to inherit will do so when and how you want it to happen.

I generally find that, much to many client’s surprise, what we talk about in our meetings is life. We talk about our children, our parents, our siblings and friends, the lives we’ve built together and the lives we want them to have. My clients share stories with me, often deeply intimate and usually told with a smile on their faces. Why does a certain child want a particular piece of jewellery? Why would you want them to inherit at that particular age? Because don’t you remember that time when…. Because I’d like them to be able to do this… Because I know they’d want to do that…..

Good estate planning is problem solving, but one family’s problem is another family’s non-issue. You won’t be asked questions about your death itself, but you should be asked a lot of questions and to consider a lot of different scenarios to identify what really worries you about your family inheriting (are you worried about inheritance tax? Do you actually need to worry about inheritance tax? Are you worried you’ll pass before a parent who is now living with you and they’ll be left unable to afford the home you share? Are you worried about one of your children’s relationships?). I think of these as your pain points, and good estate planning is pain relief.

And relief is what client’s always feel at the end of this process. ‘Thank goodness we’ve dealt with that.’ ‘It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.’ ‘I’m so glad we’ve got this sorted now.’

I don’t really talk about your death because, the sad truth is, I can’t do anything about that. But I can improve what comes next for your family. And lets be honest, the truth about estate planning is it’s not actually about you.

Sideways disinheritance. Its a phrase you may well have not heard before, but when I describe the phenomenon I often find my clients know someone in their circle of family or friends who has, directly or indirectly, experienced it.

But what is it?

Lets imagine a scenario. John and Jane are happily married and have two children, Sam and Sally. John and Jane have sensibly written simple wills leaving everything to one another on first death and then down to the children equally on second death. Sadly John unexpectedly passes away and as per the Will the estate passes to Jane.

A few years later Jane meets Adam, falls in love and remarries.

Marriage invalidates a Will, and she never gets round to writing a Will with new husband Adam. Jane passes away, and now according to the rules of intestacy her estate that she built up with John now passes to Adam, and not John’s children Sam and Sally.

This is sideways disinheritance.

Many of us have stories of this, a lot of us worry about this occurring maliciously but its all to easy for this to occur by accident too. So how do you protect from it?

There are a few options. You could set up a lifetime trust and pass your assets into this in your lifetime, protecting your assets from all sorts of outside influence for generations to come.

Or you could write in-will trusts that will put your assets into trust on your death and protect them for your nominated beneficiaries giving the lifetime benefit to your spouse should they survive you.

The option you take will depend on what is right for you, your family, and your priorities and you need an estate planner who can talk you through all of these options and work out what is best for you.