Estate Planning for Blended Families With Valerie Hogan

Apr 4, 2024

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It All Starts With Communication

Communication is crucial for estate planning in blended families, highlighting the importance of being open, transparent, and truthful. While this may be difficult at times, it's essential for bringing issues to the forefront, suggesting that effective communication is the foundation for addressing the unique challenges blended families face in estate planning.

How do blended families with different goals work it out?

When spouses in blended families have different goals, they should prioritize seeking understanding and compromise.
Seek first to understand and then to be understood, emphasizing the value of asking questions like "tell me more about that" to gain insight into the other person's perspective.
When disagreements become particularly challenging, involve a third party for neutral counsel. This approach aims to help spouses find common ground, or at least agree to respect and support their separate goals, fostering unity and cooperation.

The Importance Of Meeting The Needs Of Both Families

It’s important to have at least some common goals between the two families, emphasizing that it's ideal for all parties to be pulling in the same direction. There may be separate goals but it’s crucial that these not be in opposition to each other. The aim is for the families to work together on shared goals, and if there are individual goals, both spouses should be supportive of them. This approach facilitates a process where peace can be made with having separate goals, ensuring that efforts are collaborative rather than divisive.

What are some of the issues or sticking points that blended families commonly run into?

One major issue is the division of attention and resources among children from previous relationships versus those from the current relationship. This can lead to feelings of being overlooked or undervalued, particularly among older children who may fear being left out or disinherited.
Additionally, blended families often face challenges stemming from different levels of wealth, assets, and experiences brought into the union by each partner.
These differences can create conflicts over how to integrate and manage such varied financial backgrounds and expectations within the family.

The goal of estate planning in blended families is to achieve unity and honor God in the process. It’s important to address the unique challenges blended families face, such as managing different goals between spouses, ensuring all children feel valued, and integrating various financial backgrounds.

The aim is to find a balance that meets the needs of both families involved, fostering an environment where all members can agree and make peace with their financial decisions and estate planning, ultimately honoring their shared values and beliefs.

On Today’s Program, Rob Answers Listener Questions:

My mom’s estate is split into two pieces and we're currently in probate as we navigate the details of the distribution of all her assets. However, my question is that I’m getting a lot of paperwork during this process and the lawyer handling the probate process is asking me to forfeit my right to an audit of her estate. Is that normal? Do lawyers do this a lot? I just didn’t want to sign something before knowing what I was signing. Do I need to hire an attorney to help me translate all of the lawyer talk I’m running into?
On my Roth 401(k), do I have to pay taxes on it? I’m about to retire in a few months and just want to make sure I don’t draw funds too early.
I’m wondering if I should pay off our mortgage. There is a $70,000 balance left on it with a 3% interest rate but I still have several years before I want to retire so I just wanted to know if that was the best thing to do with that money.
Is Social Security Disability considered taxable and is also considered income?

Resources Mentioned:

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