Читать книгу Estate Planning Through Family Meetings - Lynne Butler - Страница 18

This is not a reason to put off having a meeting. In fact, it is one of the best reasons in favor of having a meeting. One of the main goals of holding family meetings is to get to a consensus on important issues. It likely will not happen instantly. You should anticipate that it may take more than one meeting to make decisions, if people are starting with no preconceived ideas. Your first discussion will probably be a general one about the need to do some planning and to pinpoint the areas that need to be covered. After that you will set out some time lines and goals to be achieved and go from there.

If your family’s estate-planning needs are complex, realize that you may end up having several meetings, each of which builds on what was done or decided in the meeting before. This is not at all unusual. Estate planning is always a process and you should not be dismayed or discouraged by the fact that it will not be accomplished in one day.

You should understand that your family may never reach the point where everyone agrees about what should be done about your parents’ estates. Is the consensus of everyone on every issue actually necessary? Your parents might have plans that some of the children will agree with and others will not, but as it is your parents’ estates it is their right to make that decision. Perhaps the purpose of your family meetings is not to get everyone’s agreement but simply to let everyone know what your parents are planning to do. Perhaps everyone will have to agree to disagree.