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====== Seventy Percent of Estate Plans Fail ======

Seventy percent (70%) of estate plans fail. This is the conclusion of an extensive study
conducted by Roy Williams and Vic Preisser, and described in their book, Preparing Heirs, Five
Steps to a Successful Transition of Family Wealth and Values (San Francisco, Robert D. Reed
Publishers, 2003).

The Williams and Preisser study involved 3,250 estate plans. A failed estate plan was one
in which planned asset transfers from benefactors to beneficiaries did not result in the full value
of the assets (valued at the date of the benefactors’ deaths) ultimately being transferred to the
beneficiaries. The value of all bequests to beneficiaries was less than the value ascribed to all
assets at the benefactor’s deaths. I am assuming their study took into account basic
administration costs and economic factors.

Williams and Preisser argue in their book that the primary reason why estate plans fail is
a lack of effective communication between benefactors and their family beneficiaries. In my
experience estate plans fail for several other reasons summarized in the introductory video found
on this website.

In my decades of experience in estate planning, Williams and Preisser’s seventy percent
failure figure is more than believable. For numerous reasons, at least 70% of estate plans fail to
live up to what they promise to do. The value of all bequests to beneficiaries is often
significantly less than the value of all the benefactor’s assets at the benefactor’s death, after
taking into account administrative costs and economic factors. The reasons most estate plans fail
in this way include reliance on cheap online documents and document-mill attorneys (poor
documents); lack of communication between benefactors and beneficiaries (Williams and
Preisser); mistakes and misunderstandings of the law on the part of inexperienced executors;
outright fraud; and disputes and litigation.

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