What is Estate Mediation?

Estate planning mediation (also known as estate mediation) is an excellent method to clarify the underlying needs, interests, and motivations of parents and other elders at the end of their lives and their adult children and other heirs.

Estate mediation also helps prevent inadvertent estate planning mistakes and provides updating for an estate plan that has lost its vitality or intent during the passage of time. The family meets with a mediator in a series of discussions which help address issues and put into place (with the help of an attorney and sometimes a financial planner) an updated estate plan and other understandings that will assist the children in dealing with the practical issues raised by the eventual deaths of their parents.

​Estate planning mediators works with attorneys, accountants and financial planners, as well as meeting with the elder generation and the adult children. Estate planning mediation is also useful for estate planning for couples in second marriages, where there are children from the first marriages. Mediation can help accommodate the interest of the couple, their need for security, and their loyalty and allegiance to the children of their previous marriage.