Ten Reasons Estate Conflicts May Be Increasing

2. Dementia

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An estimated 5.3 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. This figure includes 11 percent of those over age 65 and a whopping 32 percent of those over 85. With more people getting old and living longer, dementia becomes less of a worry and more of a certainty. While a diagnosis of dementia does not by itself prove a lack of capacity to change an estate plan, the diagnosis certainly raises a capacity issue and also is an indicator of susceptibility to undue influence.

3. Increase in Need/Burden for Caregivers

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In the coming years, more people than ever will be elderly with declining physical and mental capacity and in need of outside care. As a result, expect to see more non-family caregivers or families in which the burden of care falls to just one family member.

Consequently, more property transfers are likely to go to non-relatives or to just the one caregiver relative. Such situations provide great potential for litigation by those who receive proportionately smaller inheritances compared to the caregiver. Such arrangements also, unfortunately, provide fertile ground for potential elder abuse, which can lead to the dissipation of an estate right under the heirs’ noses.

4. Blended Families

Multiple marriages can lead to divisions among blended families. For example, if a wife wants to favor her biological children with her share of the property, her husband’s children from his previous marriage may be unhappy. Further, such complicated familial structures often feature a lack of communication between the various “branches,” which often relying on the decedent as a go-between who holds everything together. Once the single unifying link among a blended family’s disparate elements is removed, normally innocuous issues in an estate can become flashpoints for explosive fights.

8. The Celebrity Effect

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Trust and estate fights involving celebrities and the ultra-wealthy are frequently and widely reported in online channels, and court proceedings are sometimes televised. When a Hollywood star’s children battle in the public arena over her estate plan, readers may find parallels in the dramas playing out in their own families. Stars, they’re just like us.

On the other side of the coin, there’s the issue of desensitization. If the average person only hears about wills and trust in the context of high-net-worth and celebrity conflicts, then it becomes easy for them to write off such necessary items as luxuries of the rich and famous. Or, since there’s never a big news story about a trust working smoothly, only when they blow up, it can easy for clients to write such vehicles off as not worth the trouble.