Elder Law Report
Elder Law Report
Your Toddler Doesn’t Need A Lamborghini: Smarter Ways To Leave Money To Kids
Most parents focus on car seats and cribs, but the real safety net is legal: who can act for you in a crisis, who raises your kids if the unthinkable happens, and how your savings and life insurance actually support your family’s future. We dig into the essential steps every new parent in North Carolina should take, from naming guardians in a will to creating trusts that protect minors from windfalls and missteps.
We start with the basics of incapacity planning—why marriage alone doesn’t grant authority over real estate, retirement accounts, or medical decisions—and how durable financial powers of attorney, health care proxies, HIPAA releases, and advance directives keep life moving when you can’t. Then we unpack intestacy rules that may divert assets to parents instead of your spouse, and how a simple will puts your wishes first. The heart of the conversation centers on minor children: choosing the right guardian, setting clear priorities in the will, and coordinating that choice with the person who will manage the money.
From there, we explore how to design trusts that match real life. Rather than dropping a lump sum at eighteen, structure distributions for health, education, maintenance, and support; stagger access over time; and give your trustee the discretion to pause or accelerate funds based on maturity. We share practical incentive ideas—proof of employment, vocational or college progress, sobriety requirements, or military service—that align money with meaningful milestones. Along the way, we highlight common pitfalls with beneficiary designations and offer guidance on picking fiduciaries who blend heart and expertise.
If you’re expecting or recently welcomed a child, this conversation helps you turn love into a concrete plan that protects your spouse, centers your kids, and preserves your values. Subscribe for more clear, practical guidance on estate planning and elder law, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to tell us what topics you want next.
Hello and welcome to the Elder Law Report. I'm attorney Brenton Begley, attorney and partner with McIntyre Elder law. I'm here with one of our esteemed associates, Haley Matson.
Haley Matson:Hi, Brendan.
Brenton Begley:Is it afternoon? No, it's before night. Good morning.
Haley Matson:Good morning.
Brenton Begley:Today we're going to talk about uh estate planning for new parents. So, you know, I get the question all the time. I'm sure you get this question a lot, Haley. When should you start planning? It's kind of a hard question that to answer because you know, really anyone who turns 18 owns any assets, anything like that, really should have estate planning documents in place. Right. But most people aren't wanting to hear that really. They want to hear like what life event tells me that I really should have some type of estate planning documents in place. Is it when I get married? Is it when I have a kid? So what do you think? Do you think that people should start thinking about planning whenever they have their first child?
Haley Matson:I think you should start thinking about planning when you get married. And I think you should definitely start actually planning as soon as you have your first child, if not while you're like in the preparation process for getting ready. Because your estate plan is really going to lay out kind of what happens in the event that there was ever an accident and something happened to you and your spouse. You're going to be able to pick your guardian, kind of pick what kind of trust any inheritance goes to. There's a lot of really important stuff that you're going to need.
Brenton Begley:Right. Yeah. And so let's dig into that a little bit. When you first get married, one of the main things that you really want to make sure of is that you know your spouse has power of attorney for you to make decisions for you. If you can to something were to happen to you where you know you're even temporarily incapacitated, your spouse cannot, by virtue of the marriage, make decisions for you, especially with like real property, retirement accounts, medical decisions. So it's incredibly important to have that spouse named so that they can do that just in case.
Haley Matson:Yeah.
Brenton Begley:The other thing is that if you still have parents and no children, what you have to understand is by intestate succession law, if you pass away in North Carolina, not everything will go to your spouse. Okay, so you'll have your parents entitled to some of those assets. So you really want to make sure that you go through the plan if you do want to leave everything to the spouse. Then when you have a child, it's extra important because, like you said, you mentioned guardian. What about the guardian in the will? Why is that important?
Haley Matson:It's important because you're going to lay out who exactly would be taking care of your child in the event that something were to happen to like you and your spouse. Otherwise, they're going to get a guardian ad lightum or somebody assigned by the court to do that rather than being able to kind of set out that individual yourself.
Brenton Begley:Right. So me and my wife, I mean, if we travel, we travel everywhere. And I kind of see that as a point of vulnerability. If we're traveling together, we get in a wreck together, we both pass away together in a common event or disaster. We would want to make sure that any child born of us that we've gone through and picked who we want to be the guardian. And that person, if we name them in the will, is gonna have priority over every other soul on planet Earth. Okay. Yep. They're gonna be the ones that the court appoints unless for some reason they can't do it, like they pass away. They, you know, they're felons, something like that. But barring that, you know, if you name that person in the will, um, they're gonna have priority. And I think that's important for a lot of people. I think they have that concern. Like, what happens to me? What happens if something happens to me, something happens to my spouse, who's gonna take care of my minor children? And then another astute thing that you had mentioned is trust. Like, what if I if me and my wife dies? We have a bunch of money and insurance policies that you know we're leaving behind, and our child is, I don't know, like eight years old. What happens then?
Haley Matson:Yeah. Um, it's you can't give inheritance outright like that to a minor beneficiary. So it's going to have to either be held by the administrator of your estate if you don't have a will, or you can set it aside already in a will or a trust and decide exactly who takes care of that money for that minor beneficiary and at what age and intervals that beneficiary will eventually inherit from you.
Brenton Begley:Right. And that and that's a good point, too, because you know, if I have a child who's eight years old now, there's a practical concern that if I leave money behind, who's going to actually be in control of that money? Right. And how easily are they going to be able to get a hold of it and what can they do with it? I can set all those parameters in an estate cleaning document beforehand. So if that ever happens, all of that's laid out. But the other thing is too, is like, you know, if I'm not around to raise my kid, I might have concerns about this choices that they make, right? So I might not want to leave a child or a grandchild's assets, especially significant assets, until they turn a certain age, right? If I if I have a life insurance policy that leaves $500,000, a million dollars to a child, and they can get it when they turn 18, then an 18-year-old with that much money isn't probably not going to use it prudently, probably not going to invest it. They're probably going to blow it.
Haley Matson:I know or something. Something fun. Yeah.
Brenton Begley:Yeah, exactly. You're going to have a lot of fun. It's not going to be used what I intended it for. Um, so I can also set up my estate plan to, like you said, have it doled out to them at regular intervals or use for specific things like health, education, fitness, and support until they reach a certain age where they're, you know, able to really manage money like that.
Haley Matson:You can also put it in your trustees' discretion too. So if you you can appoint like a really trusted friend or somebody who's great with money to manage that, and you can kind of put it in their hands if you want to to decide. So if you know your child is growing up and something happens to you and your spouse, and as the child grows up, they just never become that responsible. Your trustee will be able to hold that back and use it for only specific things. So it gives you a lot of customization.
Brenton Begley:Yeah, you know, you've done you know a number of those, and you've probably done something similar, you know, to what I've done in the past too, is that if you ever have concerns about a child reaching certain goals or being a productive member of society, then you can put in the terms of your trust or will uh incentives for that child to act a certain way, right? So you can require drug tests that your trustee administers. I've had that in multiple um trusts. You can require that they seek education beyond high school, whether it's vocational, whether it's you know or military, right? That's another one. Um just so that to get the money that I'm leaving you, you have to be on some productive path in life.
Haley Matson:Yeah, I was gonna say one I just did this morning, gainfully employed.
Brenton Begley:Gainfully employed.
Haley Matson:Yep, that was that was one of them this morning, too. So exactly. There's a lot of concerns about that out there. I get it, I get it completely.
Brenton Begley:Yeah. Well, thank you, Haley, for going over this. And I mean, I think the conclusion here is that um you should really start planning if you're married, get some basics in place. But once you have that child, that triggers the absolute need to put a plan in place for you and your spouse. And uh, I know you help um lots of couples in the state of North Carolina put those plans together from you know, uh a younger age, someone around your age, up until, I mean, good Lord, I don't know what your oldest client could be, but you know, I mean, we help people of all age ranges make sure their assets are protected and their wishes are carried out during their life and after they pass away. So if you have questions about how to set up your estate plan, when to plan, what to do, any of that, just give us a call or visit our website, mcelderderlaw.com, where you can look at all of the videos and articles we have about anything that we do, which is estate planning and elder law. And you can also take advantage of a free consultation by scheduling on the website. It'll allow you to schedule on any of the the attorneys' calendars, whether that's Charlotte, that's Shelby, that's Hendersonville, take advantage of that free consultation in the office convenient to you. And we'll see you. Thank you, Haley.
Haley Matson:Thank you.