Authored by Lee Kapnisi, CFA, CFP®, CPWA®, Senior Financial Planner

In 2009, Lee Kapnisi was preparing to leave the UK and move to the United States. His wife is American, and they had committed to making the move and figuring out the rest once he arrived. It was the kind of decision that felt exciting and unsettled at the same time.

That August, his father passed away. He was 56.

In the middle of that loss, a practical question surfaced that the family had not anticipated: was Lee still going to be able to leave? The answer turned out to be yes, and the reason was not luck. It was planning. Lee’s father had put a plan in place. Because that work had been done years earlier, the people he left behind were able to grieve without also having to scramble.

Not long after, a couple of Lee’s friends lost a parent prior to retirement age, those families did not have that kind of planning in place. The difference in what followed, administratively, financially, and emotionally, was significant. That contrast is a large part of what drew Lee to this work. It illustrated early in his career that financial planning is not only about what return a portfolio can generate. It is about whether the people someone loves are equipped to handle what comes next.

A Conversation Almost Every Family Avoids

Lee recently spoke with a client who wanted to know how to help his wife open a conversation with her aging parents about exactly this: what have you done, and what should we know? It is a common question Mason’s advisors hear, and it runs in both directions. Just as often, advisors talk with parents who have never had this conversation with their own adult children.

In Mason’s experience working with clients on this topic, the concern is rarely about the money itself. It is about not wanting to become a burden. Sometimes that means a health burden. Just as often, it means an administrative burden: a mess of accounts, unclear intentions, and unanswered questions at the exact moment a family has the least bandwidth to sort through them.

Who is supposed to get what? What happens to the tangible things: the artwork, the jewelry, the house, the items with more sentimental weight than dollar value? These are frequently the things families end up in real conflict over, more so than the accounts themselves. Every family’s situation is different, which is exactly why the conversation matters. There is no template that fits everyone, but there is a shared starting point: someone must open the door.

If You Are the Adult Child

For adult children considering how to raise this topic with a parent, the most important thing to understand first is that this conversation is not about taking away a parent’s independence. It is the opposite. It is about making sure a parent’s wishes, not assumptions, guide what happens.

A few ways to open the door:

• Lead with care, not paperwork. Something like, “I want to be able to help you the way you’d actually want, not guessing. Can we talk through some of this together?”
• Use someone else’s story as an entry point. “A friend of mine went through this with her dad, and it was so much harder than it needed to be because nothing was written down. It made me realize we’ve never really talked about this.”
• Ask questions instead of making demands. “Do you have a plan in place? Is it up to date?” tends to land very differently than “You need to get this done.”
• Expect more than one conversation. Few families resolve this in a single sitting, and that is normal. The goal of the first conversation is often just to open the door, not to finish the job.

If You Are the Parent

Mason’s advisors also spend a lot of time with clients who have their financial plans in order but have not shared much of that with their own adult children. Some things worth considering, drawn from those conversations:

• No one can make a parent have this conversation, and there are valid reasons some parents hold back, often a concern that knowing the numbers will change how their children see them or behave. That concern is real, but it is not always as significant as it feels in the moment.
• Often, the hesitation is less about privacy and more about not knowing exactly what to say, so the conversation gets postponed indefinitely. It is not only about the money. It is about the reasoning behind it. A letter alongside a will, explaining why one child received something different from another, can carry more weight than the document itself, particularly because it is a conversation many parents would rather not have in person.
• There is also, often, a cultural dimension to how comfortable a family is discussing money openly, and that is worth acknowledging rather than working around.

A useful starting point, regardless of where a family currently stands: What are your wishes? What is your vision for how this is handled? What do you expect for your children or other beneficiaries? The specific answers matter less at first than simply beginning to articulate them.

The Goal Is Momentum, Not a Single Conversation

Whether the conversation starts with the adult child or the parent, the point is not to resolve everything at once. It is to get the process moving and to treat it as ongoing rather than a single, dreaded event. A short, honest exchange today is worth more than a perfectly organized conversation that keeps getting postponed.

If a family has not had this conversation yet, a financial advisor can often help open the door. A neutral, experienced perspective in the room, reviewing what is already in place and identifying the gaps, can turn a difficult topic into a manageable one. Click here to schedule a consultation with Lee Kapnisi. >>

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Lee Kapnisi, CFA, CFP®, CPWA®, is a Senior Financial Planner at Mason, which he joined in August 2022. He was awarded the CFA charter in 2019 and earned his CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification in 2015. Prior to Mason, Lee served as a Senior Wealth Management Advisor at TIAA in Fairfax, Virginia. He holds a Masters of Mechanical Engineering from Exeter University in the UK.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or investment advice. Mason is a fee-based advisory firm. Please consult with a qualified attorney, tax professional, or financial advisor regarding your specific situation.