Compared to what occurs in many similar situations, my family has actually been quite civilized. “I hear the word ‘hate’ a lot,” says Les Kotzer, a Toronto lawyer and author specializing in wills and estate planning. “Brothers spitting on brothers. Sisters who never speak to each other again. All because of wills that were never done or that were incomplete.”

It doesn’t take much to set off a family feud. Badly worded clauses, incompletely expressed intentions, or out-of-date provisions can ignite brawls that last for decades. Sometimes the argument is about which son gets his father’s war medals. Sometimes it’s because the daughter who spent years caring for an elderly parent thinks she’s not getting enough money — or she’s getting too much, in the opinion of the other siblings. Whatever the specifics, the problem always comes back to the powerful emotions that are vented when a loved one dies. “Canadians are hung up on saving a few bucks in probate fees or taxes,” says Kotzer. “The far more important and poisonous issue is the hurt feelings that can be left behind.”

Most of the pain can easily be avoided. If you’re willing to spend eight to 12 hours preparing a plan, you can take a giant step toward ensuring that you leave behind a loving, united family rather than a squabbling clan at odds with one another. Apply a little bit of expert advice and you can simultaneously save your heirs a bundle of money and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing you’re doing the best for the people you value the most.

On paper, an estate plan consists of four documents. The first is a will that details how your property will be divided. The next two documents are powers of attorney — one for property, one for personal care — that spell out who can make decisions for you if you’re incapacitated by illness. The final piece of paper is an insurance policy. This isn’t required, but it is a good idea if you’re leaving behind young children or a substantial tax bill.

What should unite all of these documents is an understanding of your family’s feelings. Experts can advise you on tax and legal matters, but no one knows your loved ones better than you do. A small amount of time spent communicating your intentions now can avoid leaving your kin with an eternity of questions. Just ask my family.

Step 1: Organization

Your very first step toward an estate plan can be accomplished in an hour or even less. It requires nothing more than finding the documents that show what you own and what you owe. For starters, look for mutual fund statements, pension plan forms and the title deeds to any property that you own. List any loans, mortgages or lines of credit you have outstanding as well as your credit cards. If people owe you money, note this, too. And, if possible, try to find documents that show what you originally paid for the stocks, bonds or other securities in your portfolio.

Yes, collecting these papers is a boring chore. But simply having all the information at hand, in a single folder, makes it easy for an accountant or lawyer to figure out your financial situation. That could save you hundreds of dollars in professional fees. It also makes it easy for your heirs — and yourself — to see the extent of your estate at a glance.

Once you have your papers together, it’s time to ask yourself what you want to do with the wealth you will leave behind. At first this may seem simple — everything will go to your spouse, or it’ll be divided equally among your children. But think about whether any of your possessions — a ring, say, or a particular photo — have special meaning. If so, you may want to consider making a special bequest of those items to specific people. Note that down. And note down, too, any potential problem areas: a family cottage that will have to be divided among several children, a business that has to be split, how you’re going to compensate your other kids if you leave a favorite and valuable possession to one child. These topics will form the basis of later discussions.

Next, consider whom you want to be executor of your will. This person will be in charge of arranging your funeral, settling your final bills, filing your last tax return and making sure that the provisions of your will are carried out as you wished. Obviously it should be someone you trust — your spouse, a child, a close friend or a professional trustee. It helps if the person has some familiarity with legal or business matters. Ideally, too, your executor should live nearby and, if you’re getting on in years, it should be someone younger than yourself so he or she will be around when your family needs them. You can name your husband or wife as executor, but, if so, you should also name an alternate executor in case you and your spouse die together.

If you’re a parent with young children, you should consider whom you want to be the guardian of your kids if you and your spouse should die before they reach the age of majority. It should be someone who can support your children without feeling resentful; it should also be someone who will raise your children in the way that you wish.

This is an emotionally charged decision and it brings us to the issue of communication. Before naming anyone as executor or guardian, you should discuss the responsibilities of the job with them and make sure they’re willing to take on the chore. At the first opportunity, you should also talk things over with your entire family. If you have adult children, schedule a dinner or get-together. Prepare people beforehand, explaining what you would like to be in your will and asking for their feedback. Far better to hash things out now, while you’re still here, than to leave your heirs with everlasting grudges.

“One of the biggest mistakes I see is that parents assume there will be good will among their children,” says lawyer Kotzer. “Just because you love all your kids doesn’t mean they’ll all love one another. If they’re older, with their own spouses, their own families, their own bills, it’s easy for an argument to break out, especially if one child feels they’ve been somehow slighted.”

What could start a fight? It might be appointing your oldest child as executor without consulting your other kids. It might be bequeathing a favorite keepsake to one child instead of another. It might be deciding to leave a financially struggling son more money than you leave his rich older sister. Whatever the case, it’s best to put your decision on the table now and discuss it with the people who are involved.

Communication is particularly important if you are living with one of your adult children. A son or daughter who takes you to the doctor, prepares your meals and fetches your prescriptions deserves more than a child who lives hundreds of kilometres away-but how much more is the question. Talk it over with your caregiving child first. Perhaps they don’t expect or want anything extra. But if they do, make sure their siblings are aware of the arrangement.

Step 2: Talk to an accountant

If you have a substantial amount of wealth, it pays to spend an hour or two with an accountant who specializes in estate planning. You might think that these professionals do nothing more than crunch numbers and calculate tax, but accountants are very good at giving advice about your options — options you may not even know you have — and often they take the lead in developing an estate plan.

One of the goals of any good estate plan is to minimize taxes. When you die, the tax man attempts to treat your registered assets — in other words, your RRSPs and your RRIFs — as though you had cashed them in and taken all the resulting money as income. You can avoid the tax damage on registered assets by leaving them to your husband or wife. You can also sidestep the tax hit by leaving these assets to a financially dependent minor child or grandchild, or to a financially dependent handicapped adult child. Otherwise, your estate has got to take the hit, and it can be a blow, erasing as much as 48% of the value of your registered assets.

That’s not the end of the pain. With the exception of your home (which passes tax-free to your beneficiary), the taxman views all your non-registered assets as though they were sold for fair market value at the moment of your death. You have to pay taxes on any capital gains that result. You can avoid this “deemed disposition” by leaving assets to your spouse, but if you don’t have a spouse, your estate must pay the capital gains tax.

To make matters worse, your estate may have to pay probate fees. Probate is the process of recognizing the will as valid and confirming your executor’s authority to act on it. The fees for this vary among the provinces, but they are usually set as a percentage of the value of your estate. In Ontario for instance, a $1,000,000 estate would pay $14,500 in what Ontario calls “estate administration tax.”

An accountant may be able to point out ways to minimize these levies by setting up trusts, establishing joint accounts or giving money away before you die. At the very least, an accountant can prepare you for the size of the tax bite ahead and suggest ways to deal with it. “The key is to know the magnitude of these levies,” says Robin Wydryk, a partner with Scott, Batenchuk & Co. LLP in Burlington, Ont., “You can’t always avoid them, but you can plan for them.” For instance, if you’re leaving behind a considerable tax bill that might force your family to sell a beloved cottage, you may want to consider taking out a life insurance policy on yourself to help pay the bill. You can also use insurance to provide an inheritance or to make a charitable donation.

If your accountant thinks life insurance is a good idea, shop through an insurance broker, who will give you competitive quotes from several companies, rather than through an insurance salesperson, who represents only a single firm. In most cases, you’ll be interested in buying what’s known as term-to-100 insurance. This is a type of life insurance policy that insures you to age 100 and beyond; its virtue is that it’s much cheaper than alternative forms of insurance such as whole life. (In a few cases — usually only if you’re affluent — a form of insurance known as universal life may also be worthy of consideration, but make sure to run any insurance broker’s recommendation past your accountant before signing on the dotted line.)

Step 3: See a lawyer

By some estimates, fewer than half of adult Canadians have a will. This is shocking. If you die without a will, your property may languish in trust for months before your heirs can touch a penny of your money. Your wealth will ultimately be divvied up by the government according to a strict formula that apportions your possessions to your nearest relatives. Your wishes about who should get what, even if you expressed those desires frequently in past conversations, won’t matter. Some loved ones — including common-law spouses or unadopted stepchildren from a previous marriage — may be left out entirely.

In most cases, all that drawing up a will requires is an hour or so of your time and a couple of hundred dollars in lawyer’s fees. If your situation is absolutely straight-forward, you can even buy one of the numerous do-it-yourself kits on the market and pen a will yourself. But in most cases, it pays to sit down with a lawyer. He or she can open your eyes to questions you may never have considered.

In addition to a will, a lawyer can write up what’s usually known as a “continuing” or “enduring” power of attorney. (In Quebec, it’s known as a mandate). This is a relatively simple document, but it’s enormously powerful. It allows a person or people you choose to act on your behalf if you should become mentally incapacitated. Ideally, you should have two powers of attorney — one for your property and one for your personal care. (Legal nomenclature can be confusing so let me stress that what you need for estate planning purposes is a continuing or enduring power of attorney for property. This remains in effect even if you’re mentally incapacitated. In contrast, an ordinary power of attorney for property — the type that, say, gives someone the power to pay bills for you while you’re spending the winter in Florida — is valid only so long as you are mentally competent. Hence it’s not much use in estate planning.)

Your power of attorney for property can be as broad or as specific as you choose, but in most cases it allows your chosen administrator access to your bank accounts if you become unable to function. This can be a godsend for your family. It means that if you’re hovering in a coma, the mortgage and other bills will still get paid. The power of attorney for your personal care can be even more important. It allows your chosen administrator to make decisions about the care that you will receive if you’re too sick or confused to make decisions for yourself. This can span everything from deciding on pain management and heroic resuscitation measures to selecting your nursing home.

No matter how simple your situation may appear, a discussion with a lawyer can be educational. Consider Basil and Sheila Riolino, a Welland, Ont., couple. When they had their first child they decided it was time to make a will. Their situation seemed simple enough — if one of them died, all their money would go to the surviving spouse; if both died, it would go to their daughter and any other children they might have in future. But a discussion with a lawyer revealed nuances they hadn’t thought through.

For instance, they discovered that not much in a will is binding when it comes to the raising of a child after your death. Other relatives can petition for guardianship and even instructions to the guardian with respect to religious instruction are not legally binding. That underlined the importance of choosing a guardian wisely. “Ultimately you have to trust that the people you’ve put in place have integrity and that they’ll honour what you’ve requested as best they can,” says Sheila.

The Riolinos’ lawyer suggested ways to head off potential family squabbles. For instance, he recommended naming two executors, one from each side of the family, so there would be no question of favoritism. He also asked the Riolinos to consider what kind of access the guardian and their child should have to the estate’s money. Should the money be put in trust? And at what age would their daughter be permitted to withdraw funds from the trust? The lawyer even suggested they include a stipulation in their wills stating that if their daughter’s marriage should end in divorce, any money she inherited while married would not be shared with her former spouse. “The foresight surprised me,” says Sheila. “We had this little baby in our lap, but we were already making sure that we would nail any bugger who would someday break her heart.”

Once you have your will completed, take a deep breath and congratulate yourself. Your estate planning is largely done. Only one small step remains.

Step 4: Updating

No matter how thoroughly you plan your estate, situations change. Children are born, relatives die, marriages begin and end, property fluctuates in value. For all those reasons, you should dust off your will at least every three years and make sure it’s still up to date.

Kozter, the wills expert, says that family squabbles are often caused by inadvertent inequality. Say you decided to leave your collection of hockey cards to your son. You figure the collection is worth about $1,000. To make sure your daughter is treated equally, you bequeath her an extra $1,000 in cash. That’s fine. But what happens if 10 years later, when you die, the collection has soared in value and is now worth $20,000? One way to avoid such a situation is to review your will and make sure that what seemed equitable when you first drew it up is still equitable today.

Ultimately, an estate plan should be a chance to draw your family together and celebrate your life. All it requires is a few hours of your time. Yet Sheila Riolino, who works as an intensive-care nurse, is shocked by the number of critically ill patients she sees who have never drawn up even a simple will. “Even people in their nineties often don’t have one,” she says. “They think they’re jinxing themselves if they have a will drawn up, but I think it’s just selfish. As a kindness to the ones who are left behind, you really do need to make sure they’re going to be OK.” If only my grandfather had been so thoughtful.