Estate Planning Considerations If You Don't Have Children

Everyone who decided not to have children eventually has to face this situation and it can be quite stressful. Some have opted to leave vast sums of money to charities or efforts they care about. If you don’t have offspring, you can still leave a legacy behind that ensures people will remember you as someone who believed in something worthwhile.

There are a variety of ways to go about establishing an estate plan when you have no obvious individuals to pass your wealth on to. Read more about these options in our blog below:

You can appoint a very close family friend or a distant family member as your power of attorney in your estate plan. It is important that you do have someone selected to ensure that your elder care wishes be fulfilled. Additionally, it is crucial to ensure that your financial situation is taken care of in event of sickness or incapacitation.

This person might benefit from your will, and they might not. That’s up to you. Regardless of this choice, it is important to ensure that you have someone appointed to take care of you as you continue to age.

Consider Beneficiaries

Just because you don’t have children doesn’t mean you don’t have people in your life that you’d like to pass your estate along to. Not every childless person needs to grant the entire worth of their estate to a charity to be considered a good person.

If you have someone much younger than you who has proven to have been an important and valuable individual in your life, you may consider passing your estate along to them. The absence of children doesn’t mean you won’t have people who mean something to you who could survive you.

Consider Charities

If you’re interested and don’t have many people in mind that you’d give your estate to otherwise, you can look into granting charities with some of your assets. Some options include spreading your budget thin and giving 20% of your estate to five different charities, or narrowing it down and only selecting a few.

If you’re at a loss on where to start, look up some local charities near you. There are organizations that help a various number of causes. Some may provide assistance to underprivileged kids, some work toward funding cancer research, and others focus on food initiatives. Whatever your passions are, you can likely find a charity that closely matches personal values. You can gift money from your estate now, or you can put them into your will for a future donation to be organized for when you pass away.

Non-Monetary Assets

Remember, assets can include much more than money. The following can be considered assets: pets, jewelry, websites, photo albums, and real estate properties among other things. These types of estate assets,  are much harder to pass on to a charity than cash is. If you’re wondering where to donate things of this sort, you can always turn to potential beneficiaries and even those you’re granting medical power of attorney to.

For example, you may not write them into the will to receive any money; however, you may opt to pass along your physical possessions of value, like those listed above. This is a great way to portion out your estate without worrying that your very expensive diamond ring might end up in a jewelry case at a secondhand store because someone doesn’t know what they’re truly inheriting.

Put It In Writing

Whatever you decide to do with your estate will require you to put something in writing. If you don’t have anyone assigned as your medical power of attorney or as a beneficiary of your estate, the money and  privileges often go to a court selected individual.

Regardless of how your worldly possessions end up and whether or not you have a good end of life treatment is entirely up to how you set up your estate plan. Within your estate plan, you’ll need to include very specific details in relationship to  what your expectations and wishes are for all of your assets and your elder plan.

This is more crucial for people who don’t have children or a clear beneficiary than it is for those who have them. In the event that someone with children does not make the needed preparations, it’s likely someone from the family will be elected by the court to handle such responsibilities. In the event that no natural family is left, it’s all up to how the courts will weigh in on the distribution of your wealth and wishes.

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