Emotional Powder Kegs

I've lost track of how many times this has blown up so I'm now adding it to estate planning documents for my clients: an option for a cooling off period after death and before removing personal/household items. 

It happened AGAIN. The proverbial match for decades of flamable emotions in a powder keg just waiting to explode can simply be . . . . miscommunication about when a decedent's house should be cleaned out. The surviving family members told me they were going to get along when they hired me to do the probate, they really seemed like they were going to get along, and then BOOM. 

Think about it: Think about all of the different personalities and how different people react to stress and grief. While one person needs to take control and busy themselves with something as seemingly innocuous as donating old work clothes or cleaning out a pantry, another person might feel that maintaining some level of sanctity by not touching anything while coming up with a linear plan after thorough discussion makes the most sense. Each plan might seem downright offensive to the other person within days after the death of a loved one, especially when it's looked at through the lens of decades of other unresolved issues. I can give you an unfortunate number of examples over the years of this exact thing happening. I've seen family relationships ruined over it. 

So, in response, I've added an option that clients can select so that they can instruct their trustees that no one is allowed to remove any personal items from their home for a certain period of time if they think this could possibly be an issue with the different personalities of their loved ones. If the "you're just sitting around doing nothing while I'm the one cleaning out mom and dad's garage!" versus "you just barge in here and have no respect for her things and don't even give me time to mourn!" fight breaks out, clients have already left instructions to referee the outcome. 

And that, friends, is why you still want to hire a battle-tested estate planning attorney to do your custom, comprehensive estate plan instead of a robot.