The Top 10 Ways to Incite Anarchy When You Die

Loan various sizable amounts of money to the kids.

Write down some of those debts in a prominent place indicating a clear intent that their share of the estate be offset by the debt they owe, but leave other debts unrecorded. This will put your children in the position of arguing about how much each of them borrowed, and what amount should be offset against each of their shares.

Leave disproportionate amounts of your estate to certain individuals.

Let it be known to them and others that the purpose of the disproportionate gift is that they are expected to share some portion of what they receive with certain other individuals. Be vague, and don’t write any of it down.

Arrange for substantial accounts to be owned jointly with certain children — but not all of them.

When you die, they will get the funds in those accounts. Where there is no expression otherwise, the law presumes that these assets were not intended to be shared or distributed in accordance with your will or trust, but rather retained by the joint owners as their separate property. This will put those children named as joint owners in the position of having to be fair or greedy. Ideally the children you name as joint owners on these accounts will be married to individuals who are particularly unlikable.

Make it known to all the children that you have substantial cash in a safe at the house, or hidden around the home.

Keep valuable coins or bullion in the house. Show it to the kids, and give them a good idea of how much is there. Make sure they (and their spouses) all have keys to the house and access to the safe. Before you die, without letting them know, spend a bunch of the money and sell some of the coins, so that when they go through the house it is clear that some substantial portion of what they expected to find is no longer there. Then, when they come to inventory the property in the home, they will naturally believe that one or more of them got there ahead of time and took some of these valuables.

If you have a recreational property, set up a trust so that after you’re gone, the kids have to maintain it as a unit.

Require them to meet regularly to decide how to pay for the taxes and upkeep, and how to share use of the property among them. Leave only sketchy directions as to how this will be accomplished, but be clear that the trust cannot be terminated or altered, will continue for a long time, and that nobody can buy anybody else out.

Don’t hire a lawyer to bog down what you want done with all those legal words.

Go online and find a form. Then just write everything out the way you want it done. Masking tape on the backs of items with directions as to what you want to happen with them is a good idea too.

Deed your real estate so that it is divided in a way you think is fair.

Sign the deeds and have them witnessed and notarized, but don’t record them. Stick them in a drawer where you know they will be found after you’re dead, but don’t tell anyone about it ahead of time.

Go to a lawyer and have them write everything up all professional-like.

Then, as the years pass, write and scribble on those documents. And, on other pieces of paper, write more things that come into your mind about how you want your estate divided. Sign some of the papers, date some of the papers, but not all of them. Make sure the documents contradict one another in more than one important respect. Then leave them all together in some place where they will certainly be found.

Rather than dividing your estate in shares, be very specific about what items and properties go to which individuals.

Then sell some, but not all, of those things. Make sure your estate plan doesn’t include a contingency about how to handle property that is no longer around when you die.

If you are fortunate enough to have a child (or, better yet, a son-in-law or daughter-in-law) that is particularly difficult and can’t get along with any of your children, appoint that person as trustee of a trust that grants the trustee a significant amount of discretion as to the process of settling your estate. Give them the ability to drag it out, to decide how those personal items of sentimental value are divided, and to place values on other more substantial items, and direct that they pay themselves for whatever work they deem necessary to accomplish the estate settlement.