House Calls for Estate Planners

Although estate planning meetings usually take place at the firm’s office, making a house call can result in several benefits including:

• • • Better insight to net worth. Seeing a house or assets that your client owns can help you better understand the extent of his/her estate.
    • Disclosure of specific assets that need special treatment. A Picasso or a fine wine collection needs to go to someone who knows how to care for it and can afford to do so. Your client may not consider such details.
    • Revelation of who is important in a family-owned partnership.
    • Better insight into family relationships.
    • Promotion of personalization and friendship. Estate planning is a “people practice” and is centered around forming relationships with your clients.
    • Better insight into client personality and values. By witnessing relationships firsthand, you’ll see how your client truly feels about family members.

See House Calls Give Inside View for Estate Plans, Private Wealth, Oct. 21, 2010.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (WealthCounsel) and Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this to my attention.