Many of this writer's clients emphasize that they don't want arguments among their loved ones after their passing. But, "you don't know your family until you've shared an inheritance with them." While money itself may be neutral, the love thereof is destructive, both to the person so afflicted and to those around him or her. It can even destroy your estate plan.

Be honest with yourself when planning your estate. If your loved ones, or some of them, are afflicted with the love of lucre, plan carefully to reduce or eliminate incentives and opportunities to dominate others for gain. Lifetime patterns of dominance and submission between children often simply continue or are exacerbated in your estate administration after your death, but can be ameliorated by carefully forethought.

First, carefully select your fiduciaries – executor, agent under power of attorney, trustee. Make sure that he or she is able to resist the temptation for personal gain at the expense of your beneficiaries, and to withstand the intensity of impecunious or acquisitive demands from your loved ones.

If no one in your family can fill the bill, consider a professional or corporate executor or trustee. Companies such as banks and trust companies, and local professionals such as accountants and attorneys can provide fiduciary services for a fee. Make sure your professional or corporate fiduciary will be attentive to your family. If your estate is large or complex, you might have to weigh the greater capability of a large but distant corporate fiduciary against the greater attentiveness of a local professional fiduciary.

A trustee committee, consisting of a family member and a professional or corporate fiduciary, can provide some of that balance. The family member, knowing the needs and personalities involved, can provide insights easily overlooked by a corporate fiduciary, while the professional or corporate fiduciary often supplies more consistent administration and a "relief valve" for the family fiduciary besought by beneficiaries.

The selection of your fiduciary, while often simple, sometimes requires great forethought and planning.

Second, think through your distribution carefully. "All to my children in equal shares" sounds simple, but masks the necessity of appraising and distributing your tangible personal property – your "stuff" – based on dollar value. A better formulation might take into account past promises and known proclivities to distribute items based on a distribution list or at the discretion of a trusted executor. Remaining assets can then be divided as you have determined.

The requirement that your executor "sell all my assets and distribute the proceeds" can eliminate arguments about who gets what, but can also simply postpone the argument to the date of the auction, as children are forced to bid against each other for what they want.

There is simply no substitute for thinking things through for yourself.

Third, be sure your will or trust is out of reach of your beneficiaries. Storing the document in the house or other known, accessible location gives an unscrupulous child the ability to change your carefully laid plans by "losing" the will or trust.

You can deposit your will (but not a living trust) for safekeeping with the Register of Wills of the county in which you reside. The cost is only five dollars, and only you can withdraw your will from their vault. You receive the satisfaction of knowing that this documentation of your wishes is physically safe from the vagaries of life such as house fires, and also protected from those who would alter your intentions for their own advantage.

Some attorneys will retain your documents for you. While this is initially attractive, if that attorney goes out of business, your documents can be lost. This writer is the custodian of original wills from one such local attorney, and it has proven difficult to locate many of the clients of that attorney in order to make other arrangements.