Estate planning tends to lean on the same formula: leave everything to your spouse, then split the rest evenly among your kids. So if you’re single, childfree by choice or circumstance, or navigating estrangement, where does that leave you? Estate planning should keep you front and center, but “personal estate planning” usually feels more like “if you don’t fit the mold, we’ll try to make it work.”
If your lifestyle or situation breaks the mold, you need to know two things:
- Welcome to my screw-the-norm club! I’m a big fan.
- You have some really cool estate planning opportunities. You just need to start with an estate planning attorney who wants to focus on you instead of making room for you.
Don’t Settle for Less
Repeat after me: asking for an estate plan that works shouldn’t be too much of an ask. Most estate planning intake forms assume a spouse and kids are somewhere in the picture. If that’s not the case for you, the attorney you work with matters even more than usual.
Some questions to ask when finding an estate planning attorney:
“How do you help me decide who should inherit when my closest relationships don’t fit a traditional family structure?”
The people who matter most to you may be friends, extended family, chosen family, or others who don’t fit neatly into a traditional family tree. You want an attorney who is comfortable starting with those relationships and building a plan around the people you actually trust and care about—not around assumptions about who should matter most.
“How do you help me decide the best way to leave assets to the people and causes I care about?”
Choosing your beneficiaries is only part of the process. A good attorney should also help you think through whether gifts should be made outright, through a trust, through beneficiary designations, or in another way that fits your goals and the needs of the person or organization receiving them.
“Who can I choose to make medical and financial decisions for me if I don’t have a spouse or adult child I want in that role?”
When a spouse or adult child isn’t the natural choice, you may need to think a little more creatively about who should step into these roles. That might be a trusted friend, someone in your chosen family, or, for certain responsibilities, a professional fiduciary. A good estate planning attorney should help you consider the strengths of each option and decide who you would actually feel comfortable trusting with your medical care, your finances, or both.
“Who else on your team will be involved, and how do you coordinate with my financial advisor or CPA?”
One of my biggest pet peeves is estate planning that lives in a silo. There are ripple effects to the estate decisions you make, and they can either work against your investment accounts, tax strategy, and beneficiary designations, or they can work together. You want to know how (and whether) an estate planning attorney will actually talk to the other professionals managing your money, especially when your estate plan will look a little different.
Once you’re working together, expect a conversation that starts with your priorities, not a generic checklist. Expect them to ask about your relationships in detail, not just skim past them. And expect your estate plan to name real people and expressly state your wishes, not defer to assumptions the law would otherwise make on your behalf.
What “Intentional” Can Actually Look Like
Without the standard framework to lean on, personal estate planning can really take any direction that appeals to you. I’ve seen clients build their estate plans around their values in many inspiring ways.
- Funding what you believe in. If a cause, institution, or piece of research has meant something to you for years, a thoughtfully structured charitable gift can support that work in a way that reflects both your values and your broader estate plan. Depending on how it’s set up, it can have a lasting impact and may even offer tax advantages during your lifetime.
- Investing in people, not just heirs. Extended and chosen family can play a much bigger role when you have the flexibility to prioritize them. If your niece can’t source funding for her startup, or your godson is headed to law school, you have the opportunity to make a genuine difference in their lives.
- Taking care of chosen family. For many women who live outside of the nuclear family structure, the people who show up in a crisis aren’t necessarily connected by blood. If you want to name the friend who has been your emergency contact for years, you get to.
Before you do any of the above, consider who you would trust to make medical and financial decisions for you if you became incapacitated. Without a spouse or adult child as the obvious choice, deciding who should serve in these important roles deserves just as much attention as deciding who ultimately receives your assets. Get a full breakdown of who you need and how to choose here.
Your Legacy, On Your Terms
You shouldn’t have to feel like an outlier just because you don’t have a white picket fence life or family structure. Being childfree, single, or dealing with an estranged child can feel complicated, whether or not it’s what you chose, and the last thing you need is an estate plan that makes you feel like a third wheel in your own life.
Estate planning should feel more like a choose-your-own-adventure–because that’s what it actually is. You get to choose what you want your legacy to be, how you want your later years to look, and who you want making critical decisions when you can’t.
Ready to start? I put together a free guide specifically for women navigating estate planning without kids. Download it here and start building an estate plan that fits you, not the other way around.
COD00001554