A couple with a three year old and a baby have been meaning to make wills since the first pregnancy. They get as far as the guardianship question every time and stop.
Neither of them can face choosing. So they choose nothing, which is a decision as well, and a worse one.
The checklist
Work through these and the conversation becomes possible.
1. Understand what the appointment does
Names who would take responsibility for the children. It is a practical arrangement rather than a judgement about who somebody loves most.
2. Understand what happens without one
That arrangements would be determined by a process rather than by the parents, potentially with disagreement in the family. Naming this is usually what moves people.
3. Ask who is willing
Before anything else. An enormous number of appointments are made without asking, and the person may not be able or willing when it matters.
4. Ask about their circumstances
Age, health, their own children, their work and whether their situation is stable. It is a practical assessment, not a character reference.
5. Ask where they live
Distance from school, from the family and from everything familiar. Moving children across the country is a significant part of the decision.
6. Ask about their relationship with the children
Whether the children know them, whether they see them and whether the children would be comforted rather than frightened. It matters more than seniority.
7. Consider appointing more than one
A couple jointly, or a substitute if the first cannot act. Circumstances change over the fifteen years that matter.
8. Separate the money from the care
That whoever raises the children need not be whoever manages anything left for them, and that separating the roles is common and sensible.
9. Explain how the children would be provided for
How funds would be held and used, and what a guardian could draw on. Guardians worry about the cost and parents worry about the burden.
10. Write a letter of wishes
Schooling, faith, values, contact with family and anything that matters. It is not binding and it is enormously valuable to whoever steps in.
11. Tell the family
That the appointment is made, and why. It prevents the disagreement that arises when nobody knew, which is the family territory in power of attorney enquiries from adult children.
12. Review it as the children grow
The right person for a toddler is not always right for a fifteen year old, and the appointment should be revisited.
12b. Consider what happens in the short term
Guardianship covers the years afterwards and says nothing about the first forty eight hours, when somebody must collect children from school and stay with them overnight. Naming a nearby person for the immediate period, alongside the appointed guardian, is the practical detail that turns a legal arrangement into a plan.
13. Publish the fee and the process
Because parents postpone on cost as well as on difficulty, which is the transparency in property and home questions in estate planning.
14. Answer at the hour parents think about it
Late at night, after the children are asleep, which is when parents research anything, as in youth and children's activity questions from parents and the guided decisions in an AI shopping assistant for product fit.
Getting started
Publish the guardianship questions, the letter of wishes idea and your fee, then capture enquiries at any hour without advising. SpideyChat for law firms answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.