On Being Neighborly

A few years ago, I had the need to document a new Trust to help protect my assets for my two beautiful children. Pretty standard stuff: single dad, two kids, split everything 50/50, etc. I needed a professional estate attorney, and so I reached out to a friend who was happy to help.

At the end of the process, which took a few hours spread over a few weeks, my friend looked at me and said, “Congratulations, you now have a new trust. Next step is to fund it.” “Oh, sure…and my apologies, but what do you mean?” “You know, fund the trust.” “Um, those are the same words, what do you actually mean?”

I then learned that I needed to update the title of my home to the Trust, not to me personally. Same with bank accounts. And car titles. And, and, and. This is not my estate attorney’s job, it is mine and mine alone. Their role is to create the entity and the structure, and my role is to fill it with my assets as clearly as possible so that nothing gets tied up indefinitely in the Probate Courts where only the lawyers and government are winning.

Two points on this: 1 - Why aren’t we speaking to each other as neighbors? 2 - Your family’s preparedness and planning and paperwork is your responsibility, full stop. I won’t belabor point #2 here today, but as the wisdom goes: the Lord helps those who help themselves.

But let’s linger on #1 a bit, if you’ll allow. In my experience, when a neighbor sees something odd, they are kind yet direct about the situation. A neighbor will tell you when your sprinkler is puddling near their garage or when a fence needs mending. It tends to be a simple conversation, maybe with an experience share (“I remember when something like this happened a few years ago…”), and some pros / cons / advice on how to best remedy. And lo and behold, I am fortunate to experience many times when my neighbor helped (and once we even rebuilt a fence!).

If good fences help make good neighbors, good planning and paperwork help makes good inheritances. We can help each other, in a neighborly way, and move our families forward…