Dealing with dysfunctional families can be a difficult job for a financial advisor. A good advisor will need to learn how to adapt and modify their strategy to deal with any given number of possible situations. Litigation involving wills or trusts can get complex and expensive, and a good financial advisor should be able to avoid these types of situations with careful estate planning. Tangible personal items that might not have a lot of monetary value might have important sentimental value to certain family members, and it will be extremely important to plan ahead for these type of personal items in any estate planning. Advisors will need to help family members communicate with each other so that they can agree to a plan and avoid costly legal battles in the future.
See Keith A. Davidson, Family Dysfunction Takes a Different Approach: Adapt and Modify, Albertson & Davidson LLP, January 7, 2016.
Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse for bringing this article to my attention.
