What do you do when you become unsure of your counselors’ competency to answer your questions?

I try to find new counselors.

This morning, I thought of the accounting firm whose services are used by all the 501(c)(3)s with which I’m familiar. I looked them up on the web and just wrote them an email: Read the rest of this entry »

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J____, our legacy planner, replied quickly to my email last night:

I just got your email. We have been in meetings all day long and have one more meeting tomorrow morning before we head home.

There is so much in your email, I would prefer to address these matters with you and Sarita by phone instead of trying to respond to them all in an email. We will be in the office on Thursday and Friday. Could we set up a time to have a conference call with all of us?

I replied, “Of course we can speak by phone! . . . And Thursday or Friday should be good. Please suggest some times when you’d be available, and I can confirm. . . .”

I then copied him (though in a different form) much of what I just posted.

!!!!!

I am definitely not comfortable right now!

Talk about disappointment. And shock.

Our legacy planner presented his legacy plan proposal this afternoon. That was fine. Indeed, it was quite exciting.

But he didn’t merely present his ideas for our future. He showed us where our current estate plan, drafted about eight and a half years ago, is going to leave us . . . unless we take some drastic action.

The results of our current plan are so far off-kilter from where we actually want to go, I can hardly express my dismay.

Some of the most shocking elements: Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I shared a list of the top characteristics of families who successfully transferred their wealth from one generation to the next.

Perhaps the most important summary characteristic: all family members–including spouses–are involved in the legacy planning process. In addition, the family has developed what Williams and Preisser call a Family Wealth Mission Statement (what I believe Link calls a Family Wealth Letter of Intent: although Link seems to encourage more privacy or–depending on how you look at it–secrecy on the part of the parents; less openness à la Williams and Preisser).

Williams and Preisser, however, list some additional characteristics of families who are well-prepared for successful wealth transfer. 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 »

I’ve already read Jay Link’s Family Wealth Counseling.

He’s issued a clarion call to pay attention not only to the financial aspects of an estate plan or legacy plan, but, I would say, he calls our attention even more to the social and spiritual/emotional issues related to one’s . . . lifetime legacy.

I chose those last two words carefully.

I think we aren’t normally challenged to think in terms of our lives when it comes to estate planning. We are led to think in terms of death, dying, and what happens after our lives are over.

Link, by contrast, calls us to Read the rest of this entry »

S____ hasn’t provided me any resource suggestions yet, and I’m restless. So I went to Amazon.com and did some looking on my own. I found a number of highly rated books that look as if they will to speak to what I’m interested in, so I’ve ordered them. (Typical behavior on my part: gather as much information as I can find!)

Titles: Read the rest of this entry »

Based on the very strong negative feedback from our kids and Sarita’s request, I called InKnowVision late Friday afternoon to see if they could suggest other facilitators besides G____.

Scott Hamilton, the president, promised to call me Saturday morning at 9 to discuss the matter. Well, he did call, and we spoke for an hour and 20 minutes. I was exceptionally impressed, first, that he would be willing to speak with me on a Saturday morning; second, that he would take as much time with me; and, third, the quality of his questions. Very deep, probing, insightful. Read the rest of this entry »