3 Reasons Why Single Folks With No Children Need An Estate Plan

More and more young people are delaying, or completely forgoing, a life that involves marriage and parenting. The lack of jobs, crushing student debt, multiple recessions, and the pandemic have pushed young people into a life that leaves little room for partnership, marriage, and having children. Yet, for other young adults, staying single and childless is a choice. As more young adults opt for non-traditional lifestyles, the number of single childless households is likely to steadily increase in the coming years.

This should not deter single, childless individuals from creating their estate plan- they need one, too!

If you fall into this category, you may think you do not need to take estate planning as seriously as those families with families. You might believe there’s really no need for you to worry about creating an estate plan or protecting your assets. This is a huge mistake. In fact, it can be even MORE important to have an estate plan if you are single and childless.

Having an estate plan protects you from complications that are not issues for those married with children. This is true whether you’re wealthy or have limited assets. Without proper estate planning you’re jeopardizing your wealth and assets as well as risking your life. When you die or become incapacitated you will leave conflicts, messes, and expenses for your surviving family and friends to deal with. With this in mind, if you’re single and childless, consider these three inconvenient truths before you decide to forgo estate planning.

Whether you’re rich, poor, or somewhere in between, in the event of your death, everything you own will need to be located, managed, and passed on to someone. This can be a massive undertaking in itself—one that few families are properly prepared for.

In fact, following a loved one’s death, American families spend an average of $12,616 over the course of 15 months (18 months if they were executor of the estate) to finalize the person's affairs and settle their estate, according to the first annual Cost Of Dying report released this year by tech startup Empathy in partnership with Goldman Sachs.

On top of the logistical complications involved with finalizing your affairs, without a clear estate plan, including a will or trust, your assets will go through the court process of probate, where a judge and state law will decide who gets everything you own. In the event no family steps forward, your assets will become property of the state.

Why give the state everything you worked to build? And even if you have little financial wealth, you undoubtedly own a few sentimental items, maybe even including pets, that you’d like to pass to a close friend or favorite charity.

However, it’s rare for someone to die without any family members stepping forward. It’s far more likely that some relative you haven’t spoken with in years will come out of the woodwork to stake a claim. Without a will or trust, state intestacy laws establish which family member has the priority inheritance. If you’re unmarried with no children, this hierarchy typically puts parents first, then siblings, then more distant relatives like nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, and cousins.

Depending on your family, this could have a potentially detrimental outcome. For instance, what if your closest living relative is your estranged brother with serious addiction issues? Or what if your assets are passed on to a niece with poor money-management skills, who is likely to squander her inheritance? If your estate contains significant wealth and assets this will lead to a costly and contentious court proceedings with all your relatives hiring expensive lawyers to fight over your estate. This could tear your family apart while making their lawyers rich simply because you didn’t think you needed an estate plan.

As your Personal Family Lawyer, I will work with you to create an estate plan that ensures your assets will pass to the proper people while avoiding unnecessary court proceedings and family conflict.

When you think of estate planning you most likely believe this means managing your assets and determining who will receive your assets when you die. This is not the case. In fact, some of the most critical aspects of estate planning have little to do with your assets. An estate plan puts in place special directives to follow while you are still alive.

Proactive planning allows you to name the person you want to make healthcare decisions for you in the event you are incapacitated and unable to make such decisions yourself. This is done using an estate planning tool known as a medical power of attorney.

For example, if you’re incapacitated due to a serious accident or illness and unable to give doctors permission to perform a potentially risky medical treatment, it would be left up to a judge to decide who gets to make that decision on your behalf. If you have a romantic partner but aren’t married and haven’t granted him or her medical power of attorney, the court will likely have a family member, not your partner, make those decisions. Depending on your family, that person may make decisions contrary to what you or your partner would want.

Furthermore, your family members who have priority to make decisions for you could keep your dearest friends away from your bedside in the event of your hospitalization. Or family members who don’t share your values about the type of food you eat, or the types of medical care you receive, could be the one’s making decisions about how you’ll be cared for. This is completely avoidable. To prevent these issues, you will need to implement a living will. A living will protect and outlines your critical end-of-life decisions and how you want your medical care to be managed during your incapacity.

Bottom line: If you are single with no kids, you need to create an estate plan to name healthcare decisions-makers for yourself and provide instructions on how you want those decisions made should you ever become incapacitated and unable to make those decisions yourself.

As with healthcare decisions, if you become incapacitated and haven’t legally named someone to handle your finances while you’re unable to do so, the court will pick someone for you. You can avoid this by granting someone you trust a durable power of attorney.

A durable financial power of attorney is an estate planning document that gives the person you choose the immediate authority to manage your financial, legal, and business affairs if you’re incapacitated. This agent will have a broad range of powers to handle things like paying your bills and taxes, running your business, collecting your Social Security benefits, selling your home, as well as managing your banking and investment accounts.

Without a signed durable financial power of attorney, your family and friends will have to go to court to get access to your finances, which not only takes time, but it could lead to the mismanagement—and even the loss—of your assets. The person you name doesn’t have to be a lawyer or financial professional; it can be anybody you choose, including both family and friends. The most important aspect of your choice is selecting someone who’s imminently trustworthy since they will have nearly complete control over your finances while you remain incapacitated. Rest assured with us as your Personal Family Lawyer®, your agent will have access to our team should they need help or guidance.

Given these potential risks and costs for yourself and those you care about, it would be follishg if you are single without kids to ignore or put off these basic estate planning strategies. Identifying the right estate planning tools is easy to do, and it begins with a Family Wealth Planning Session. During this session, we will consider everything you own and everyone you love, and guide you to make informed, educated, and empowered choices for yourself and your loved ones.

In the end, it will likely take just a few hours of your time to make certain that your assets, healthcare, and finances will be managed in the most effective and affordable manner possible in the event of your death or incapacity. Don’t leave your life and assets at risk or leave a mess for the people you love; contact us to get your estate planning handled today.

Book a call here to learn more and get started today!