In the 2006 comedy film Failure to Launch, Matthew McConaughey plays a 35-year-old bachelor still living at home with his parents who ends up hiring an “interventionist” to help him “launch.” However, often in real life, the Failed to Launch child never succeeds in achieving personal or financial independence, remains at home with parents into adulthood, or lives nearby as the subject of “economic outpatient care” from mother and father. Incidentally, after remaining a constant fixture in his parents’ lives, the Failure to Launch child was finally named as the family’s living confidant’s successor guardian!
Living guardianship is the form in which many families currently manage their inheritance. The person you appoint as your surrogate guardian has considerable responsibilities, holds the highest civil duties and standards of care recognized by law – fiduciary duties. “Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of a most sensitive honor” is how Judge Benjamin Cardozzo famously described this responsibility. Given this task, your alternate guardian must be someone you can trust, and who is able to manage your trust responsibly.
Often, the Failed to Launch child feels entitled to the largest share of the inheritance because he remains close to his parents, never starting a family of his own. Complicating matters, the Failure to Launch child may be the eldest in the family, giving rise to the ‘firstborn’ complex – the first person to inherit the entire estate and generously care for his younger siblings as he wishes.
Parents set up a living trust to avoid probate. But under this scenario, the child with the least financial intelligence—the child who is accustomed to being the main object of their parents’ financial affection—is left in charge. Ironically, the estate later became the subject of a contested probate lawsuit, more protracted and expensive than it would have been had the parents not bothered to formalize the inheritance plan in the first place.
Trust litigation has exploded in volume in recent years. New world estate planning attorneys help clients plan their estates by leveraging lessons learned in court. Unfortunately, estate planning is delayed and living trusts are downloaded from the internet as if one size fits all. Perhaps worst of all, too often the successor guardian is the child closest to the parents as a result of the least irresponsible of the siblings – Failure to Launch. Therefore, careful qualitative planning and the assistance of legal counsel, with solid credentials, are highly recommended.