The Holiday Season - Hull on Estates and Succession Planning #188
Listen to: The Holiday Season - Hull on Estates and Succession Planning #188
This week on Hull on Estates and Succession Planning, Ian Hull and Suzana Popovic-Montag address the issue of family discussions about succession planning as they arise during the holiday season.
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Ian M. Hull - Click here for more information on Ian Hull.
Suzana Popovic-Montag - Click here for more information on Suzana Popovic-Montag.
The Holiday Season -
Welcome to
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Hi and welcome to
Ian Hull: Hi Suzana.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Hi there Ian, how are you today?
Ian Hull: I’m well thank you.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: That’s good.
Ian Hull: Very excited about it being 188th podcast.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: That’s right.
Ian Hull: It’s a lot of podcasts that we’ve been able to work through and it’s a special number for me because when I grew up, the street I lived on the house number was 188.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Oh isn’t that great.
Ian Hull: So it’s going to be our 188th best podcast.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: That’s good. Looking forward to it.
Ian Hull: Absolutely. And you and I, as we were preparing for this, you thought a neat sort of segway into the discussions as we enter into the holiday season is…I’ll let you describe it and then we’ll work through our topic.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Sure Ian. What I was thinking maybe we could address is, given that we are entering into the holiday season, maybe talk about some of the issues that come up during family conversations during this time. Or how we might be able to lead conversations about certain estate planning things that we’d like to happen to our estate ultimately at the end of the day when we’re talking with our family members.
Ian Hull: I think that’s a great idea and I am personally going through a little bit of this and seeing a little bit of what happens when it unfolds. Unfortunately my Dad is very gravely ill now and we have four other brothers and sisters who are all supporting our Mom to get him through this tough stage. But you do see first-hand - nothing like losing a parent or going through losing a parent – you see first-hand the kind of emotions that get drummed up. And I’m always struck by Courts which, fair enough, I think until I had to go through this with my father I probably was one of these people, in that I think the Courts tend to be a little naive about what is indeed gone on in those last stages of life. And they tend to judge people’s behaviour after death a little harshly. When one can’t forget that that period of time and having gone through it, you can see the volatility of it. Now we’re lucky in my situation, we’re not doing any estate planning or anything. My father was smart enough to have all of that organized. But it is such a tumultuous time that you can see if you add in a layer of, hey let me change my estate plan in any way, shape or form, dramatically or not dramatically, writing a child out of the Will is more dramatic. But just tweaking your estate plan in the confines of a volatile situation – when I say volatile, I mean emotionally volatile…
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Yes absolutely.
Ian Hull: You can see how things go awry. And human nature steps in. And I’m struck when after death the Courts will, in some cases, be very harshly criticizing and being pretty hard on people’s behaviour during this period of time.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: When you say people, like specifically what are you eluding to?
Ian Hull: Good question. I mean beneficiaries who either do try to claw in more it looks like, or not claw in more. And we don’t know really what the testator is doing to that beneficiary.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Right.
Ian Hull: So an easy example is the child gets told in the last 6 months of the Dad’s life, you are going to receive a benefit better than the others. And the child says well that’s nice, personally that’s always good. But more importantly I think the most natural reaction and the one that often happens is, is that that child says well this is what Dad wants. And then after death, when that child receives that extra benefit, it is seen and perceived as entirely a self-serving action by that child who is the recipient. But people are forgetting that that was dying wishes…
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Yes.
Ian Hull: …possibly. And that seems to be the other side of the argument, that people aren’t able ever to because the person has died. But if it is true that those are dying wishes then maybe a fight over an estate isn’t so capricious, isn’t so vindictive. In fact it is motivated by the decency of that individual recipient saying that’s what Dad wanted.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: And I know that’s a really good point too, even for us as practitioners because we hear these stories all the time. And we’ve even made fun of people who say, you know, that what’s was intended. But you know to actually have to experience that moment in time, you get a sudden awareness for just how important those kinds of things may in fact be and how genuine and well-motivated they might be as well.
Ian Hull: And I’m not saying that I encourage it. I still think presumably it is better to get organized before death…
Suzana Popovic-Montag: For sure.
Ian Hull: …in advance and tell the family and the like. But I think that…and not to get too philosophical…but the experience I’m going through now, I think that what happens is, is that you engage in such intense, emotional exchanges with your parent as they’re dying that little things become big things.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Right.
Ian Hull: And you know my Dad said he wanted a new razor and we all jumped and got him a new razor. Now if he said that to me 2 years ago, I would have said, you know what, I’ve got lots to do, I’ve got kids to deal with, what are you talking about? You know, I’ll get you a razor for Christmas, right? But we had a razor for him within 12 hours…
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Right.
Ian Hull: …right? And the point is, is that that request, that dignified where he wanted to be clean-shaven at a bad time, was so important to all of us. And the three of us just went and we made sure it happened, right?
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Yeah.
Ian Hull: And so what if a parent says I really want you to have the ski chalet in this period of time? Now I don’t encourage it but isn’t that a phenomenally powerful moment to the recipient? Forget that it’s self-interested. Forget all that, because that’s the obvious way people approach it in our litigation world. But what if it is truly, sincerely a heartfelt gift from Dad to the child, and that child wants to take advantage of that gift for the sole purpose of honouring wishes?
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Yes absolutely.
Ian Hull: So I think, and again we’re not trying to be too philosophical, but I think that we’re in the business of looking at two sides.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Yes.
Ian Hull: And I think it’s a mistake for us to be overly ambitious about judging people’s behaviour during this period of time when we’re not there in the room. And I think that then gets brought into the next layer and that is, should the judiciary be overly judgmental in that time? And I’m not saying that they are globally. I’m just saying that I think as advocates part of our job is to make sure the judiciary sees the other side. Now the judges have already lived through this. They’re going to know. She’s going to say, look I went through this with my Dad or my Mom. But that may not be the case for every judge and it may not be the case for every person. So I think that we have to sort of be mindful of that because…and then I think it comes back to the whole question of why are we hammering people with costs with estate fights when we haven’t hammered them with costs for about 600 years? And I think that’s another philosophical discussion that I think we should have in our next podcast because that’s our next leap into where the Courts are sometimes taking us.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: That’s true. It’s a great idea, too, Ian.
Ian Hull: Alright, well I think we’ve sort of covered a more esoteric point but one I think that has real practical implications in terms of our estate plans, and that is, looking at the other side. And that’s going to overlay into Powers of Attorneys and Wills. And I think the Power of Attorney moment is a very powerful one and we’ll start with that on our next podcast. So thanks very much.
Suzana Popovic-Montag: Thanks to you, too, Ian.
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