Peace When You’re Dead? Pipe Dream, Just a Pipe Dream…

The hallmark of any good relationship is communication.  Home is where the heart is.  Of all the things in the world that can go wrong, the one thing that you should always be able to rely on is your family.  You can always trust the ones you love.

All great sentiments, truly, they really are.  They’re clichéd, but nice nonetheless.  Sucks though that they don’t always hold up to the reality of life.  Even though none of this applies to me, as my family and life as a blogger are both perfect.  There’s a reason why half of all marriages end in divorce and why every time most people hear of the prospect of having to endure another annual family reunion at Bennigan’s causes them to hightail it to the corner store to pick up a case of Jack.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure everyone loves their family, in theory.  But there are just so many things that can cause a person to want to break off all ties with them.  Forgetting to pick up groceries, annoying grooming habits, obnoxious personalities, not shutting your bedroom door at night after coming in when you’ve specifically told them that the noise from the outside will keep you up and you have to get up early the next day…

Anyway, not all disputes end with a broken home, most are trivial matters that are usually resolved with a simple conversation or, at most, a jagged bread knife.  However, if I were a betting man (which according to the judge, I’m no longer allowed to be) I’d put my lifesavings on money being the main culprit in tearing families apart.  And in no situation is this truism more apparent then when it comes to wills.

Recent statistics from LegalMatch show approximately a third of all disputes involving wills come from clients asserting claims that they should’ve been a recipient in a person’s will.  Half of the cases involve heirs attempting to protect their interests against another party trying to take their interests away.  The values in these cases vary widely from a few thousand dollars to sometimes a few million dollars.

But what makes these cases difficult to resolve is that in nearly 40 percent of them no formal will was ever written, leaving the family to squabble over their loved one’s estate amongst themselves.  However, even though written wills exist in the majority of these disputes, the same issues still arise.

Sounds pretty grim, huh?  What’s a person to do, especially if you are the one who’s will such a future conflict may be concerning?  The most obvious solution is to try and talk everything out among the people involved.  Whether it’s your will or not, it’s always good to clear things up between those you love.  Because chances are unless your last name is Cleaver, your family probably isn’t perfect and there’s a lot of things that fester because they go unsaid – usually resulting in a beautifully tragic emotional explosion.

The other thing you can do is hire a good estate lawyer to write a tight and clear will.  Though it’s true in this day and age it seems like anyone can sue for anything regardless of how frivolous, a clean unambiguously written document still holds a lot of sway with the courts.  This means a well-written will not only ensures that the person leaving behind his estate gets the security of knowing his last wishes will be carried out to his liking, but that there would be less chance for those looking to modify those wishes to be successful at it.

Either that or you can just do what you want with your money now and leave those money-grubbing descendents weeping.