Your Estate Plan Has a Backup Plan…Right? Why Successor Decision-Makers Matter
You’ve created an estate plan. You’ve carefully chosen the people you trust to handle important responsibilities.
Your daughter is your Power of Attorney. Your brother will serve as Personal Representative. Your best friend is your health care decision-maker.
Everything is handled.
But there’s one question that often gets overlooked:
What happens if the person you chose can’t serve when you need them?
Life changes. The person who seemed like the obvious choice ten years ago may develop health problems, move across the country, experience changes in their own family, or simply decide they are no longer comfortable accepting the responsibility.
That’s why a strong estate plan doesn’t only identify the first person you want to act.
It also has a backup plan.
Every Important Role Deserves a Successor
Depending on your estate plan, you may have named people to serve in several different roles.
These could include your:
- Agent under a Power of Attorney
- Health care decision-maker
- Personal Representative or Executor
- Trustee
- Guardian nomination for minor children
Each role has different responsibilities, but they have one thing in common: someone must be available, willing to serve when the time comes, and willing to follow your instructions.
Naming successor decision-makers helps ensure that your plan continues to work even when circumstances change.
Why Your First Choice May Not Be Available
There are many reasons someone may be unable to serve.
They may have passed away or developed their own health concerns. They may live far away and be unable to manage the responsibilities effectively. Your relationship may have changed.
Sometimes, the person simply isn’t comfortable with the responsibility anymore.
None of these situations necessarily means you made a poor choice originally.
It means life changed.
And your estate plan needs to be prepared for that possibility.
Should You Name Your Children in Birth Order?
Parents often default to naming their oldest child.
But age isn’t necessarily the best qualification.
Instead, consider the responsibilities associated with each role.
Someone managing financial affairs should be trustworthy, organized, and comfortable handling financial information.
Someone making health care decisions may need to remain calm under pressure, communicate effectively with doctors, and advocate for your wishes.
The best person for one role may not be the best person for another.
What About Naming Two People Together?
Naming co-agents or co-trustees can sometimes make sense, but it can also create complications.
If two people must agree before decisions can be made, what happens when they disagree? Can both sign necessary documents promptly? Will requiring two people slow decisions during an emergency?
There are situations where shared responsibility works beautifully. There are others where naming a primary person and a successor creates a cleaner structure.
The right answer depends on your family, the people involved, and the responsibilities they’ll be handling.
Your Backups Need Backups Too
A comprehensive plan may name more than one successor.
For example, you might name your spouse first, an adult child second, and another trusted person third. And, if you have trusted people, you can name more.
The goal isn’t to predict exactly what will happen decades from now.
It’s to build enough flexibility into your plan that one unexpected change doesn’t cause the entire structure to fail.
Don’t Forget to Tell Them
There’s another important part of choosing decision-makers: talk to them.
Being named as a Personal Representative, Trustee, or Agent under a Power of Attorney can carry significant responsibilities.
Ideally, the people you’ve chosen should know they’ve been named and understand generally what you would expect of them.
You can also tell them where important documents are located and who they should contact for help.
A Strong Estate Plan Plans for Real Life
Estate planning isn’t about creating a perfect set of documents for the life you have today.
It’s about creating a plan flexible enough to continue working as life changes.
At Pettis Webber Pacific, we help families throughout Washington and Oregon build plans designed not only for what they expect—but also for the possibilities they haven’t anticipated.
Take a moment to think about your own plan.
If your first choice couldn’t serve tomorrow, do you know who would step in next?
If you don’t know the answer, it may be time for a review.