WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO
YOUR KIDS IF SOMETHING
HAPPENED TO YOU?

This is a tough question no parent wants to think about. The fact is, if you don’t have a legally documented Plan B in place your children could be taken out of your home and away from your family.

Imagine. It’s Friday night and you’ve got a babysitter! You let the sitter know you won’t be late. Time starts to pass – 11:00, 12:00, 1:00. You never return home.

The sheriff’s department eventually knocks on your door. You and your husband were killed in a car accident. They tell the babysitter to go home; Child Protective Services is on their way.

Your children wake up on Saturday morning in a ‘home’ they have never seen before, with people who they have never met. They don’t know where their siblings are because they have each been distributed to different ‘homes’ 30 miles away from each other. Your children are now part of the foster care system.

WHAT IF I DIE SUDDENLY AND
MY CHILDREN’S GUARDIAN
LIVES OUT OF TOWN?

I advise all my clients with minor children to name not only a guardian, but a temporary guardian as well. Take my family for example, if something were to happen to me and my husband, we have named our children’s aunt and uncle as their guardians, however, they do not live in Texas. Without also naming a temporary guardian our children would be placed in foster care until their aunt and uncle could travel to Texas.

Preparing the legal guardianship documents is only the first step. How will the police know you have designated a temporary guardian? How will your babysitter know? While this is being sorted out, your children are being shipped off to foster care.

I will provide you with the tools you need to make sure this never happens.

IF MY SPOUSE REMARRIES
AFTER MY DEATH, COULD MY
CHILDREN BE DISINHERITED?

Many people prepare a will which leaves all their assets outright to their spouse. This type of approach may unintentionally disinherit your children if there were to be a second marriage.

I’ve seen it happen before…

Wife dies and leaves everything to husband outright and not in a trust. Husband remarries. Husband dies and leaves everything to wife #2. Children from the first marriage, who are now grown adults, ask wife #2 for their mom’s personal items such as wedding china and jewelry.

Wife #2 responds that they can buy their family heirlooms at the estate sale.

There is a better way to protect your spouse and to ensure your children receive an inheritance.

HOW WOULD MY CHILDREN
GAIN ACCESS TO THEIR
INHERITANCE?

Whether you have thousands or millions, your Plan B should include a children’s trust.

Courts can’t just give an inheritance outright to a minor. If both parents die and there is no trust planning as part of your will, the court as expensive and annoying as it is, will control your children’s inheritance. If you have named your minor children, instead of the trust as a beneficiary of your life insurance policy or your retirement plan, all the proceeds will be controlled by the court. At age 18, when most parents plan their children to attend college, your child will gain complete and unprotected access to their inheritance. Most of us can agree that a couple hundred thousand dollars to use at the discretion of an 18 year-old is not necessarily going to motivate your child to become a productive member of society.

There is a better way. Smart parents prepare trusts to hold assets for the benefit of their minor children.