Creating an Estate Plan for the Efficient Transfer of Assets to the Family’s Daughter

The McCoy Law Firm, LLC created an estate plan that allowed for probate avoidance when the parents were leaving their entire estate to only one of their two children. The parents visited the McCoy Law Firm, LLC and explained that they had two adult children, a son and a daughter, but that they were estranged from their son. Even though they had not heard from their son in several years, they were concerned that their son would expect to receive an inheritance and that he would cause their daughter lots of trouble, drama and expense when they died. The parents owned IRAs naming each other as beneficiaries, a joint investment account with a right of survivorship and a residence. The McCoy Law Firm, LLC instructed the parents how to structure the beneficiary designations for the IRAs and the investment account to go directly to their daughter upon the death of the second of them. In addition, the McCoy Law Firm, LLC created a trust to protect the residence. The attorney explained that if they reconciled with their son, that the parents could change their beneficiary designations as well as the terms of the trust to include the son. Several years passed before both parents died, but when they did, the process was seamless: the remaining IRA rolled over to the daughter, the investment company distributed the investment account to the daughter and the house was transferred directly from the trustees to the daughter. She did not have to file either parent's will for probate and therefore did not have to become involved in litigation with her brother. Instead, this estate plan resulted in a quick and efficient transfer of assets from parents to daughter with no probate and no need to involve their estranged son.