Page 36 - Ultimate Guide to Estate Planning

Chapter 5. How can I help ensure that my
family stays together and my assets grow?

We review a lot of estate plans that other
lawyers have done. Our clients come in with

their existing estate plans asking, "Do I need to
change it?" Most of the estate planning
industry in Minnesota seems to be focused
upon forcing clients into the standard template
that is convenient for the lawyers, as well as
profitable for them to produce.

Selecting a Child as Trustee.
For example, it is remarkable how often we see
that one child is picked as a trustee over the
other children. After discussing it with my
clients, I ordinarily find that they are very open

to having somebody other than one of their
children serve in the capacity of trustee.

Ordinarily, selecting one child over other
children does not promote the family unity that
our clients almost always indicate is of crucial

importance. When asked, most of my clients
strongly desire to pass on a sense of family
unity to the next generation but their estate
planning attorney has placed the heirs in a
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