How to overcome your estate planning blues: "it takes time, costs money, raises difficult family issues, and revolves around something most of us do not want to think about--death.".

• Author: Yeske, David
• Position: Business & Finance

IT'S A HEART-WRENCHING STORY of the disastrous consequences of failing to do even basic estate planning: The client of a financial advisor had a $2,500,000 estate and two children from his first marriage. However, he owned everything in joint tenancy with his second wife and had named her as beneficiary of his financial accounts, despite repeated warnings that, should anything happen to him, everything would go to his second wife--and nothing to his kids! When he died unexpectedly at age 48--his estate plan still unrevised--his first wife was forced to sue just to get college tuition money for their two offspring.

Although most individuals don't have multimillion-dollar estates, the same principles apply whether an estate fills a modest apartment or a 50-room mansion. When you die, you want your worldly possessions to go to those people and charities you love, and that takes careful planning. If you fail to do so, or plan incorrectly, the courts may step in to determine the distribution of your property in accordance with that state's laws--a distribution that may not fit your or your heirs' wishes.

People procrastinate doing estate planning for many reasons, but one of the most common is that it deals so intimately with death. Who wants to draft a will and perhaps create trusts and implement other strategies when most of those strategies won't go into effect until the person no longer is around? Others simply delay because death feels a long way off and there's no urgency. One financial planner discovered that a new client had no will. He was open to drafting one, but didn't want to bother until after he and his wife returned from a three-week trip to Russia. The planner urged him to complete it before they left. He refused. The man died the day they returned from overseas, and probate took two years.

Another reason people put off estate planning is that they don't recognize its importance. Families often assume it is merely about saving estate taxes, and most figure their estate is either too small to be taxed or that recent tax laws have eliminated such fees. The fact is, estate taxes remain, and though Congress raised the amount of estate value that is exempt, many individuals are more vulnerable to these expenses than they realize.

Even if your estate is not large enough to be subject to taxation, estate planning provides other benefits. They include minimizing or avoiding the cost and delay of probate; providing for the care of dependent or disabled children; controlling assets before and after death; reducing the emotional and financial burden on heirs; limiting feuding among heirs over the estate; maximizing the amount available for charitable contributions; and ensuring the continuation of a family business.

Estate planning oftentimes dredges up prickly family conflicts. Parents may disagree about who...