“Most laws related to estate planning are designed for a traditional nuclear family: a married couple with adult children,” David Redick observes in this month’s issue of Kiplinger Personal Finance. But what about singles? Unmarried but cohabiting couples? LGBTQ families? Blended families? Same-sex couples with children? Disabled adults? As noted in a blog post by Baxter Law in Oregon, “In today’s ever-evolving society, family comes in all shapes and sizes.”
How very true, we know at our Indiana estate planning law firm. Common concerns among all families include protecting assets, avoiding excess taxation, providing for the needs of heirs, and, in some cases making charitable contributions. As elderlawanswers.com explains, “We can all use wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney and healthcare proxies to choose who should step in for us when needed and who should receive our property.” In our over 25 years of offering counsel to Indiana clients and adapting to changes in society and in the law, we’ve learned that the process of protecting the assets and rights in non-traditional situations takes non-traditional thinking and planning.
As an example, under Indiana law, single individuals and both same-sex and heterosexual couples (whether married or unmarried) are able to adopt children. Once adopted, a child’s legal ability to inherit is not different from a biological child. Meanwhile, stepchildren who have not been adopted by a parent’s partner or new spouse, have no automatic inheritance rights from that partner or spouse. These are factors to be carefully considered in creating the adults’ planning documents.
While all couples require individualized planning, as we’ve often observed at Geyer Law, older LGBTQ+ adults may be estranged from their biological family members who don’t accept their sexual orientation or gender identity and who may contest wills leaving assets to non-relatives or even contest non-documented medical treatment or funeral decisions.
If you are in an other than “Leave It to Beaver” family situation (two opposite-gender parents, one or more kids, all healthy and thriving), estate planning is no simple matter, Massachusetts attorney Harry E. Margolis cautions.
At Geyer Law, we know. In fact, one of the reasons we refer to ourselves as “counselors” is that frank discussions, which help clients explore their intentions and the reasoning behind those intentions, is the “secret sauce” in crafting estate planning to meet our clients’ goals.
– by Cara Chittenden, Attorney with Rebecca W. Geyer & Associates
