KBH Financial

The lawyer's office was quiet the way that rooms get quiet when something important is about to happen.

Two siblings sat across from each other at a long table. The will was read. Everything divided equally, just as their parents had always promised. The cottage in the Laurentians went to the older sister. Her brother received the cash equivalent, a fair and reasonable valuation, signed and certified.

He looked at the number on the page. She looked at him. Neither of them said anything for a long time.

He had learned to swim in that lake. He had proposed to his wife on that dock. No number on a page was going to feel like an equal trade for that. And they both knew it.

Their parents had tried to be equal. They had succeeded, technically.

But equal and fair are not the same thing. And the families who understand that distinction before they need to are the ones who tend to come through the estate process with their relationships intact.

In this article I look at two Canadian families — the Tremblays and the Martins — and what happened when equal wasn't the same as fair. I also cover the practical tools that exist to make fair possible, even when the assets aren't.

Life insurance as the great equalizer. Letters of wishes. Buy sell agreements for farm and business families. And the one conversation most parents quietly avoid, and what it costs when they do.

Equal is a number. Fair is a feeling. The families who get this right understand that both matter.

👇 Read it below.

The Will Was Equal. The Family Never Recovered. - KBH Financial Services When a will divides everything equally, it doesn't always divide things fairly. KB Henry explores why equal and fair aren't the same thing...