Family Estate Planning Attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Children as Joint Owners

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You can. It’s not a wise choice these days to do that, and 20, 25 years ago I probably would’ve advised many people to do that. Since the 2007, 2008 market drop, most estate planners, including myself, no longer make that recommendation for a couple reasons. If you add children to any of your assets as joint account holders or joint title, you’re also adding their potential creditors. So a child that might have a health care issue, a child that might have a creditor issue, perhaps a health problem that results in a lot of health care bills, a divorce; your assets essentially become their assets for purposes of their creditors or going through a divorce. So it’s not real wise to do that, and we typically will only do it for folks that are in their 80s, and the children are mature, the marriages are mature, and the children are such a age and financial condition that they can pretty much weather any financial issue that they might themselves go through.

Minneapolis Estate Planning Attorney, Jacqueline Schuh, discusses adding your children to your estate plan like a joint ownership and whether or not it’s possible.

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