Holidays are a wonderful time to enjoy family traditions and catch-up with relatives over the dinner table. With family already on their minds, December is a perfect time to remind those within your community that while they might be able to avoid family drama this year by staying at home, their estate plan might not be as lucky.

In order to help individuals navigate family dynamics and protect their estate plans, attorneys need to make sure they are aware of all potential issues. This means educating oneself on the issues, as well as creating a process by which a client is able to openly and honestly discuss these emotionally-charged topics.

The holiday season may be the busiest time of the year for estate planners. With family on their minds, your clients may be reaching out to you for last-minute estate plan changes, or to make good on a promise to update their estate plan. It’s also the perfect opportunity to make sure your clients’ estate plans are designed to take advantage of current tax law and proposed regulations. Here are three year-end strategies (beyond the most common strategies) to help you meet your clients’ needs.  

There are many reasons to help clients avoid probate—it’s costly and time-consuming, not to mention it has the potential to make a public spectacle of a very private matter. More often than not, probate disputes can arise in response to unequal treatment of siblings and other close family members in an individual’s estate plan. Since the loss of a loved one already spikes heightened emotions, adding the uncertainty of what their loved one’s estate was worth, who is playing what role in the administration of their will, and who inheriting what assets can easily aggravate old family divisions, provoking costly family feuds in probate court.