“Sibling Divorces”

There is a growing recognition that a parent’s estate plan may be the triggering factor in what has been called a sibling divorce.

The following is from Jordan M. Atin, What Parents Don’t Realize About Their Wills, HuffingtonPost.com, June 30, 2008:

[A] Sibling Divorce [is] the result of an estate dispute over a parent’s will. Now siblings who grew up together refuse to call each other “brother” or “sister”, instead referring to them as “my mother’s other children”. * * *

At the heart of most estate disputes lies family dynamics and history.

A will is the last thing that a parent says to his or her children. Written in black and white, it creates a definitive, lasting record of the relationship between parent and child and among a child and his or her siblings. That reason alone explains why estate disputes are so hotly contested. Estate litigation is often about one sibling trying to correct that record while his or her sibling seeks to uphold it. * * *

The simplest choices can have huge emotional impact. For example, choosing one child as the executor to the exclusion of the other may make perfect sense to the parent who does not think it to be the least bit controversial. But often such simple decisions can be the spark that ignites the powder-keg. The child chosen as the executor reads the will as confirming the trust Mom had in him throughout her life. To the other child, it confirms that Mom didn’t trust him as much as his sibling.

Special thanks to David S. Luber (Attorney at law, Florida Probate Attorney Wills and Estates Law Firm) for bringing this article to my attention.