E282 When Receiving an Inheritance Changes Your Solo Ager Estate Plan

<p>How does receiving an inheritance change your own Solo Ager estate plan? A family inheritance will increase the size and complexity of your estate, so let’s discuss what that means for Solo Agers.</p> <h2>Increases the size of your estate</h2> <p><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-42761" src= "https://anthonyspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Increases-the-size-of-your-estate--300x169.jpg" alt="Increases the size of your estate" width="300" height= "169" /></p> <p>How does this inheritance result in a more complex probate for you later on?</p> <p>The more you have, the higher the risk of conflict. This is because there is more at stake. If your niece and nephew were going to each receive $20,000; that’s a nice chunk of change, but not worth hiring lawyers for. But if they are now going to receive six figures each, it gets more complicated. Also imagine if you plan to leave the niece $100,000 and the nephew $300,000; the niece could feel she’d have the funds to hire an attorney and make it worth the fight.</p> <p>Then there’s taxes, and we're not just talking about estate tax. When you have more assets, you’re more likely to have capital gains issues. Or, even ordinary income tax clearance issues on your final 1040. The higher your net worth, the more complicated or diverse are your assets. If you inherited a bunch of stock and bought/sold them to organize your estate, it could cause issues getting the tax clearance on your 1040 if you die shortly after.</p> <p>It also depends what you are inheriting. If your current estate is made up of bank, brokerage, and real estate, then it’s probably pretty straightforward. But what if you inherit commercial real estate, a share of a small business, art, Bitcoin, etc.? Those are new assets that can add twists to your plans. Maybe the executor you appointed isn’t equipped to deal with these types of assets.</p> <p>This leads to the next question: Do you now need a professional executor?</p> <p>As Solo Ager, you may have chosen a friend or distantly related fami