Estate Planning for Blended Families

By Jenny Ling, Esq.

It is estimated that more than half of U.S. families are remarried or re-coupled.  If you are in a blended family with step-parents or step-children, you have unique estate planning needs.  We all hope our blended families look like the Brady Bunch or Modern Family, but blended families are not always close and members do not always share the same goals and values.  When a parent passes away or becomes incapacitated, there is potential for conflict between the surviving spouse and children. Our goal as comprehensive estate planners is to keep your family out of court and out of conflict.

Typically, individuals in blended families want to provide for their new spouse as well as their own children from previous marriages.  In some cases, they also want to provide for their new spouse’s children from a prior marriage as well.

However, there is no guarantee that if you leave your assets to your new spouse, he or she will provide for your children after you are gone.  Your children from your first marriage may end up being disinherited after you’re gone.

You may also have obligations from your divorce settlement that constrain the way your estate plan with your new spouse is constructed.  If you do not make a plan, or do not work with an experienced estate planning attorney to create your plan, your family may end up in court after you are gone.

What happens if you make no plan at all?

If you don’t make an estate plan at all, all your money and property will be divided according to Washington state’s intestacy laws.  This means that you will not have a say over how your property is split among your spouse and your children.  Washington’s intestacy laws say that when the first spouse dies, all of the community property assets go to their surviving spouse, along with half of the non-community property assets.  This can create a situation where your children are left with nothing, or much less than you’d planned on giving them.

What happen if you make the wrong kind of plan?

Consider the situation where you and your new spouse decide to go the DIY route and create Wills that leave everything to each other when the first spouse dies, then to all of your children after the surviving spouse passes.  That is a very common plan and may seem to meet your family’s needs – the surviving spouse has assets to live on, but then the remainder is split between all the children of your respective marriages.  But if you die first, your spouse would have inherited everything from you.  They could then change their Will to leave everything to their own children, cutting your children out.  Or, maybe your spouse did not mean to cut your children out, but they end up spending all of your joint assets on their own care throughout their lifetime, again leaving your children with nothing. 

Make sure your plan will work for your family.

Estate planning can be very emotional, especially if you have a blended family.  This may be a difficult task, but remember, you are doing it for your spouse and your children.  Difficult situations do not just come up in families with existing tensions.  Even where there are no existing tensions, a death may create a difficult situation. During a high stress situation like a loved one’s death or incapacity, even the most loving family can make hurtful decisions, or just be at a loss as to what to do.  By doing some planning now, your family can avoid hassles and potential heartache if something happens to you.  The last thing you would want is for your family to have to work through these issues while they are grieving.

If you do not have a plan, or are concerned that the plan you have will not work for your blended family, Contact Us.

Jenny Ling is a partner at the Law Offices of Jenny Ling, PLLC.  She focuses her practices on estate planning, business succession planning, business and bankruptcy.