If your entire estate was made up of cash or highly liquid securities, splitting your assets among your heirs would be straight forward. However, you are probably like most people and have accumulated a variety of assets throughout your life. Along with your family home, you may have a cottage, rental properties, works of art, business interests or irreplaceable family heirlooms. Each asset has a value that may not be easily and fairly divided among your heirs.

Providing fair share inheritances means passing your assets to your heirs in as equitable a manner as possible. This does not necessarily mean equally.

It may be that you wish to leave assets to specific persons for various reasons. For example, your son may be your only child with an interest in maintaining the family cottage. You may wish to leave the cottage to him and give cash to your other children equal to the value of the cottage, less an amount to reflect the costs of upkeep and taxes which will have to be borne by your son. In this way, you not only ensure that your children feel they have all been treated fairly, you also ensure that the family cottage remains in the family and is taken care of for the benefit of future generations.

Similarly, if you plan to hand over the reins of your business to your daughter, it is essential to plan ahead to ensure not only that your children are all treated fairly, but also that the business is successfully continued.

Whether it is your son and the cottage, or your daughter and the family business, ensuring you have sufficient cash to make the fair share payments is key to your estate plan. Fortunately, you can use life insurance to provide financial security for your spouse and compensate the children not involved in the transfer of specific property. Life insurance can also be used for covering capital gains tax liabilities that may have accrued on the assets to be transferred.

For more information on fair share inheritances, contact us for a Manulife Financial representative in your area.