I will be 43 years old in May. Over the last few years, I took over managing her mother’s money. My father divided the property equally between me and his half-sister. It was easy and customary to designate their heirs: leave everything to the children. A permanently single, childless woman like me? Conventions don’t provide roadmaps.
My half-sister is 20 years older than me, so I grew up as an only child. My Iranian mother has five sisters of hers, but they and my cousin live in Tehran. My American father didn’t get along with his brothers and sisters, so I rarely saw his family.
But I have made meaningful friendships throughout my life. My friends aren’t the only family I choose: apart from my 79-year-old mother, my 87-year-old father, and my 77-year-old stepfather, they are my only family.
For years I envisioned leaving all my assets to my friends. Still, I have a lot of people to consider. Especially when the “intestate succession” law, which governs inheritance when a person dies without a will, remains in the kin by blood, adoption, or marriage. There are no laws that consider non-relatives.
When you start figuring out how to bequeath all your belongings on earth to a friend, everything from notifying faraway friends (a contact list should suffice) to complying with international tax laws can become a logistical nightmare. What I thought turned out to be easy. (Check to see if your country taxed the estate or taxed the beneficiaries, like the US does, and adjust your bequest accordingly.)
What I didn’t understand is that placing a friend in this role could mean asking him to assume primary responsibilities as an enforcer or medical representative. In some ways, what is perceived as a one-way gift is more faithful to the reciprocity of friendship itself.
The difficulty of leaving assets to friends
Speaking of friends, this is one of the friends I met again for this article. Reid, a college classmate and professor at his Rutgerslaw School of Wealth Transfer, is his Wiseboard. He helped write two of his major textbooks on real estate planning, but my situation isn’t one he really considered.
Weisbord said people rarely think about real estate planning challenges like I do. “Our society can be very prejudiced against people who are childless or unmarried.
Several legal website To circumvent a will entirely by giving assets to friends while you are alive and of sound mind, so that no one in court can challenge your will after your death. Please advise. Only intestate heirs, that is, family members and those named in previous wills, can do so, Weisbord said.
Unfortunately, there are few accurate statistics on the number of contested wills.Last year, Mr. Weissboard co-wrote article A study of 443 wills probated in San Francisco between 2014 and 2016 found that 11.5% resulted in litigation. This is significantly higher than the estimates of 1% to 3.5% from studies conducted between 1950 and 1987. A law professor at the University of California, Davis, found that the most common reasons for lawsuits were undue influence, or exploitation of a person’s incompetence, and concerns about the suitability of the enforcer.
John G. Kelso, a real estate attorney in Asheville, North Carolina, says one potential way to limit such issues is to explicitly list someone in your will if you’re omitting it. .
Weisbord cautioned that it is difficult to draw broad conclusions from the data, given their geographic and temporal idiosyncrasies, but this article suggests that both he and Kelso should be more careful than I was alone. It touches on the issues that you said you should pay for. Childless people: plans for incapacity.
“If you do not have a partner, spouse, or children, you should consider advanced medical orders very carefully, as you may not feel comfortable appointing someone to act as your proxy to make these decisions. on your behalf,” said Mr Weisboard.
Similar attention should be paid to those whom I ask to be executors. Weisbord said choose someone you trust who is willing and able to do it competently.
However, it’s not as easy as asking your best friend. “It is not an honorary title to appoint someone as an executor. It is a job,” Kelso said. “It comes with responsibility and time commitment and responsibility.”
When Friends Become Executors
David Staehlin, 62, never married or had children. “I was happy to be single,” he said. He made his first will when he enlisted in the Navy in 1986, leaving everything to his parents. When he updated his will last June, many things had changed.
Since 1996, Staehlin has lived outside of St. Paul, Minnesota, far from his mother and five siblings in Nebraska, Missouri, and Colorado. “I love my family and have no complaints about them,” he said. However, he said he wasn’t very involved in their lives given the distance.
Staehlin plans to leave $10,000 each to his brother and mother. He also designates 75% of his 401(k) plans to local foreign war veterans posts and volunteers several times a week.
Everything else goes to two of his best friends, whom he calls “my Minnesota family.” Staehlin said he met Adam Ford in 2004. Mr. Ford volunteered when he joined the St. Paul Police Reserve. Soon after, Mr. Ford introduced Mr. Stellin to his partner, Ryan Calvin.
Their friendship quickly deepened. Mr. Staehlin took care of Mr. Ford and Mr. Calvin’s dogs when they traveled. Mr. Stalin was Mr. Ford’s witness when the couple got married. When Staehlin returned from vacation, he found that the couple had rebuilt their backyard. They took Mr. Stalin to San Diego to visit the USS His Midway Museum and celebrate his retirement.
Ford, who is an only child, described Stalin more like a brother than a friend.
Mr. Staehlin first asked Mr. Ford and Mr. Calvin to serve as his primary and secondary medical representatives, power of attorney and executors, and they agreed. The couple already had a sense of responsibility. Mr. Calvin, 47, holds a law degree, and Mr. Ford, 46, said her mother was the executor of her estate when her father and her husband died within months of each other. Helped her mother when she had to. other.
“There’s a lot of work to do with this,” Calvin said. At the same time, it’s an honor, he said.
The couple agreed, not knowing how much Stalin left them. “For me, it’s an appreciation for their friendship. Their lives will be a little better than they are now.”
Mr. Ford has not even opened the folder containing the copy of the will since Mr. Staelin gave him a copy of it.
“I don’t want to know all the details,” he said. “Make the most of life and enjoy it as much as you can.”
friends as beneficiaries
Although she grew up and attended college in Colorado Springs, Stephanie Novakowski, 42, lives in Nova Scotia with her husband, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Two years ago, a childless couple made a will. Most of their assets are now passed on to their granddaughter in Canada.
But Novakowski has two 401(k) accounts that worked in the United States. To avoid international tax issues, she cited two of her college friends who live there as the main beneficiaries. Like bank accounts and insurance policies, retirement accounts are “paid on death” or “transferred on death,” so they can be passed on without a will if beneficiaries are listed.
“People who ultimately feel they know me better than when I know myself,” Novakovsky said of her friends.
She made her retirement choices based on who she felt most needed. For example, a friend is caring for elderly parents and children, and her husband is recovering from cancer.
“I don’t know how much money they’ll actually be saving by the time they retire,” Novakowski said. Her third friend married into a wealthy family, so she’s Ms. Novakovsky’s backup her health care agent behind her husband’s back, but not the beneficiary.
“I don’t consider it my money,” Ms. Novakowski said. “I never actually touch that money unless I really need it.”
gift of friendship
The imperfect analogy of friends as family is a convenient shorthand for explaining its importance. “Concept Bay” In our society when it comes to close and platonic friendships. Without my siblings, partner, or children, my friends listen to my struggles, celebrate my victories, and share my memories.
“As single children, I think we probably value and think more about friendship than people with multiple siblings,” Novakowski said.
Friends can also opt out of obligations without legal or cultural repercussions.
Mr. Kelso asked: Because they deserve it? Is it because they need it? Is it based on how much I love them?
I don’t know the merits, but I would like to pay attention to the necessity when dividing assets. Love is a given. Having an asset to inherit is a privilege. It’s a treasure to have friends who can leave things to you.
