Estate planning now can save grief later

It was soon after their mother’s death in 1996 that Lea Yardum and her sister got into a fight and stopped speaking to each other.

Mrs. Yardum and her sister both decided they wanted the cherry-wood nightstand from their mother’s house, a piece that originally belonged to their grandmother.

“There were much bigger things we could have been arguing about,” says Mrs. Yardum, 31, of Sherman Oaks, Calif.

“But we were both caught up in the emotionalism after my mother died, and that caused things to happen that I would never have dreamed of.”

Many families have stories of fights that ensued after a loved one’s death, pitting brother against brother over the summer cottage or sister against sister over an antique ring.

Experts say families that communicate — before death, whether verbally or in writing — can avoid such family-wrenching spats.

“It really helps if the parents talk to the kids and ask questions like, ’Do we have anything you really want?’” says lawyer Denis Clifford, author of “Estate Planning Basics.”

“Then they can write in their will or in a living trust, ’This thing goes to so-and-so.’”

A will is the legal document used to pass property on to beneficiaries or to appoint a guardian for minor children. Living trusts are documents used to transfer property through a trust to beneficiaries outside of probate.

Mr. Clifford also says that if parents haven’t brought up inheritance issues, the children should.

“A lot of this is easier to sort out before someone passes away,” he says. “Get the communication going — parents to kids, kids to kids, kids back to the parents.”

For Mrs. Yardum and her sister, 44-year-old Gena Wilder, the impasse over grandmother’s table ended several weeks later, after Mrs. Wilder’s teenage son cleaned the table with a strong household disinfectant and destroyed the finish.

“Gena called me,” Mrs. Yardum remembers. “She was laughing and told me what he had done. Soon we were both laughing, then crying.”

And talking again.

“The lesson learned for us was, indeed, family comes first — just like my mother always says,” says Mrs. Yardum, who operates a public relations.

Mr. Kotzer, who with law partner Barry Fish wrote “The Family Fight — Planning to Avoid It,” says even seemingly small things can create hard feelings.

His book is aimed at giving families the tools to work things out amicably.

ASSOCIATED PRESS