Three Ways to Protect Your Inheritance

Wishing everyone a wonderful festive season, and I hope it brings you peace and joy. Business Insider ran an article on Christmas Day which I will share below. It touches on so many of the themes we’ve been focusing on, including having the critical conversations, focus on the planning not the dollars, harder now / easier later, and Mom and Dad living their legacy, not just leaving it.

The Forward team is excited to help families move forward. We can do this, together. Let’s let Madeline Berg and Richard Orlando, founder of Legacy Capitals, teach us how:

First: Silence. Picture this: An unsuspecting heir is blindsided by tragedy — and suddenly learns they are the inheritor of hundreds of millions of dollars that they didn’t expect. “It’s almost like a lottery winner,” Orlando said. Ask yourself: how sensible would you be?

The answer isn’t dumping your bank statements on the kitchen table. Look, kids, you’re rich! Instead, Orlando advises families to “move toward transparency” gradually. This isn’t a switch you flip overnight.

Second: There is no plan. A large part of Orlando's work revolves around creating policies for families around everything from communication to investing, Madeline writes. If a family owns a business, there should be a conversation about who will take over control and ownership of it. If there is a foundation, there should be a conversation about its goals.

Third: If you want to produce leaders, stop controlling them. So, you’ve built a business, a legacy — and yet, you don’t trust your children to carry it forward. The solution, Orlando says, is for the leader not to micromanage, but to gradually hand over the reins through projects that are low-risk and allow the children to voice their opinions.

Oh, and this transfer isn’t just happening to the superrich. Your family may not be billionaires, but you might have an avalanche of stuff coming your way anyway.