Five questions, in order, will give you a broad-stroke-overview understanding of the legacy planning process. A few additional questions help clarify. Read the rest of this entry »

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Today was the big day. I’ve been committed to acquiring a legacy plan, now, for almost a year and a half. Of course, I don’t merely want a plan; I want to implement a plan. But simply to get a proposal in hand so Sarita and I can look at it and (hopefully) say, “Yay, verily, this is what we want to do . . . ” –It’s been just shy of a year and a half.

So our legacy planner and his assistant came to our office and we spent about 3 1/2 hours going through their proposed plan. And it includes: Read the rest of this entry »

I read two books while on vacation the last couple of weeks: Preparing Heirs: Five Steps to a Successful Transition of Family Wealth and Values by Roy Williams and Vic Preisser, and Family Wealth: How Family Members and Their Advisers Preserve Human, Intellectual, and Financial Assets for Generations, by James E. Hughes, Jr.

Preparing Heirs goes into depth about the research behind a number one of our advisors mentioned to us: in a study of 3,250 families with significant financial assets, 70% of them failed to transfer their assets successfully to the next generation. What does that mean? They either lost all their money, or they found that the money destroyed family relationships. It blew the family apart in the inheriting generation.

When I read Preparing Heirs, I thought it provided some good insights, especially into the causes of failure. Read the rest of this entry »

Yipes!

We’re not talking light work, here, when we put together a legacy plan! G____ wants pretty much everything related to our financial and legal situation: Read the rest of this entry »