Everyone does their Christmas shopping just a bit differently.  I know people who shop for everything online, and I know others who put off shopping until Christmas Eve.  I take my family Christmas shopping for an entire day once a year in December.  We go to the Colorado Mills Mall and walk the entire mall looking for gifts.  Since everyone is there, including my wife and kids, we need to get creative in purchasing things sometimes.  We will leave a store, and then one of us will go back to purchase an item the kids wanted, and run it out to the car without telling the kids.  Or, sometimes my wife and I will converse with each other in our second languages – Polish for my wife and Russian for me – so that we can discuss what to do about presents for our children without them knowing all we are saying concerning potential presents for the children.  Since we spend all day shopping, we do get lunch and dinner at the restaurants in the mall, or close nearby.  My children have taken to calling this the “Bailey Family Fun Day,”or so my wife tells me.  I like to think that means we are doing something right!

Of course, we do this because we love and want to support our children.  We want them to have a happy Christmas with presents they want, but we also want to make the shopping experience one that the kids will cherish and remember fondly.  As most parents I know, I want the best for my children,and I want them to be raised the right way.  And, it doesn’t hurt to have good memories of good times as a family!  We aren’t able to buy everything out there and we aren’t rich enough to afford everything the kids might want, but the time together is setting my children up to be friends for the rest of their lives.  I know my kids are thankful for the presents and it seems like they are grateful for the experience of shopping together as well.

I consider my children to be my most valuable assets.  They are not income producing assets – they are quite the opposite, in fact! – but they are my most valuable assets.  I want them to be happy, healthy, and cared for throughout their lives.  I even want to make sure they are cared for throughout their lives if I am not here to take care of them.  As such, I have included provisions in my estate plan to provide a guardian and a conservator for them.

A guardian is a person who can raise my children if I and my wife are not available to do so.  A conservator is a person who can use the money I had when I passed away to care for my children if I and my wife are not available to do so.

Providing a guardian and a conservator for my children in an estate plan is absolutely vital and necessary to me, and should be for everyone else too.

 

Choosing the Right Guardian Matters – Choose Wisely!

When you choose a guardian to care for your children if you have passed on, you should carefully consider who will be the right person.  You may pick your own parents, or you may decide your own parents are old enough that they may not be good candidates, or you may want to not interfere with the grandparent relationship your parents have with your children.  You may choose a sibling, or a different relative.  Or, you may choose a close friend who has similar values or parenting style to you.  You likely want your children to have a similar upbringing to your parenting, so you want to pick someone who will raise your kids in a similar way to you.  Everyone has a different parenting style, and I don’t think that there is one right way to raise a child, so you want to carefully choose who will be the guardian to raise your children if you cannot.

You can designate a guardian in your will.  The designated person, or people, will need to have the court officially approve and recognize the guardian.  The court will need to give the guardian legal permission to raise the children once you are gone, as a guardian cannot just claim the legal right to raise children that are not their own, so the court has to grant that authority.  However, the courts will follow your requests and direction as much as they can.

Choosing the Right Conservator Matters – Choose Wisely!

When you choose a conservator to correctly use your money and assets in paying for your children, or other named beneficiaries, you want to carefully consider who can handle that role.  You want to choose someone who understands money and the need to use money wisely, but also choose someone who understands that not spending any money can have negative consequences.  The conservator is someone who needs to balance spending money wisely and not spending money frivolously.

You can name a conservator in your will.  A conservator is also approved by the court.  A conservatorship is supervised by the court.  So, a conservator will need to be accountable to the court and give an accounting of money spent and what is left.  Many of my clients prefer to have money controlled without court supervision, so they will create a trust to hold the money and the trust will dictate who can receive money out of the trust and under what conditions.  A trust is a private arrangement, so the person in charge of assets of a trust, the trustee, is not required to give an accounting to the court, as would be required in a conservatorship.  However, even if you have a trust, you still want to name a conservator in case assets outside of the trust need to be addressed.

 

What about Guardians and Conservators for Adults and Parents?

Of course, there are guardianship and conservatorship arrangements available for adults and adult children, or even for aging parents, but that is a subject for a different day and a different blog.  This blog focuses on setting up a guardian and a conservator for your minor children through your estate plan.  If you need to pursue becoming a guardian or a conservator for an adult child, or your parents, then you would need to go through the court process to be set up as a guardian or a conservator.

If your parents have financial and medical powers of attorney, then those documents can allow the named agent to act on behalf of a parent who is becoming unable to handle their own affairs.  Courts much prefer endorsing agents under a power of attorney as able to make decisions, instead needing to go through a full guardianship or conservatorship proceeding.  The powers of attorney are considered “less restrictive means” of ensuring an aging parent will be cared for, and are much easier to set up and carry out.  Everyone needs financial and medical powers of attorney as part of their estate plan, so they can choose who will care for them if the time comes they cannot care for themselves.

 

Guardianship and Conservatorship are a Vital Part of Your Estate Plan

Your estate plan allows you to choose who will care for your minor children if you and your spouse (of the other parent of the child) are deceased.  If you are like me, and you want what is best for your children because you care for and love your children, then you want to carefully pick your guardian and conservator for your minor children.  You know your kids best, so you can choose the best guardian and conservator for your children, and they will be happy and grateful you set things the right way. Book a call with an estate planning attorney by clicking below.