Estate planning usually begins with a fairly predictable question:

“Who do you want to leave everything to?”

For some people, the answer comes immediately.

“My children.”

“My grandchildren.”

“My spouse.”

“My favorite charity.”

And then there is a special category of client who stares across the conference table and says:

“Absolutely none of those people.”

Fair enough.

Perhaps your children haven’t called since they discovered Venmo. Your brother still owes you $600 from 1997 and insists he paid you back. Your niece has already announced which room in your beach house she plans to take over when you die.

Maybe Thanksgiving has become less of a holiday and more of an annual reminder that intestacy laws were written by people who apparently liked their relatives.

There is only one problem.

You have money.

A lot of money.

And despite decades of diligent work, prudent investing, and resisting the temptation to buy a boat, you have accumulated several million dollars that stubbornly refuse to disappear before you do.

You know you don’t want your family to have it.

You also don’t have a favorite charity.

So where exactly do you leave your millions?

Fortunately, estate planning offers considerably more creativity than most people realize.

First, You Are Allowed to Disinherit People

This seems to surprise people.

There is no general rule requiring you to leave your adult children an inheritance.

Your children may believe otherwise.

Your children may have developed detailed financial projections based on otherwise.

Your children may currently be choosing countertops for the kitchen renovation they plan to undertake approximately six weeks after your funeral.

None of that creates an inheritance right.

Subject to important rules involving spouses and certain state-specific protections, you generally have substantial freedom to decide who receives your property.

If your estate plan says your three adult children receive nothing, they don’t automatically receive something merely because they share your DNA.

Of course, this is where good drafting becomes important.

If your intention is to disinherit someone, don’t simply leave the person’s name out and hope everyone understands.

Ambiguity is the natural habitat of estate litigation.

Your documents should clearly reflect your intentions.

You want your estate plan to communicate:

“I did not forget Kevin.”

Rather than:

“Perhaps Mom forgot Kevin, and we should spend $175,000 litigating what she probably meant.”

Kevin knows what he did.

But the Money Has to Go Somewhere

Here’s the inconvenient part.

You cannot take it with you.

This is one of the few estate-planning principles on which lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, philosophers, and airport gift shops unanimously agree.

Eventually somebody—or something—has to own your assets.

If you die without an estate plan, state intestacy law will decide who receives them.

And guess who intestacy statutes tend to favor?

Your family.

Exactly the people you were trying to avoid.

So “I’ll just die without a will” is not an effective revenge strategy.

You need beneficiaries.

Fortunately, “beneficiary” is a much broader category than “relative I tolerate.”

Option One: Leave It to Friends

There is absolutely nothing that says your beneficiaries must be relatives.

Maybe your closest friend has been more like family than your actual family.

Maybe someone helped you through a difficult period in your life.

Maybe your neighbor has brought your trash cans in every Thursday for twenty years while your children somehow remain incapable of returning a text message.

You can leave money to friends.

You can leave different amounts to different people.

You can leave your house to one person and investment accounts to another.

You can establish trusts.

You can make specific gifts.

You can even leave money to people your relatives have never heard of.

Imagine the reading of the will:

“To my cousin Robert, I leave nothing.

“To Susan, the woman who has cut my hair since 2004, I leave $500,000.”

Robert will have questions.

You will be unavailable for comment.

Option Two: Start Thinking About Causes Instead of Charities

People often tell me:

“I don’t have a charity.”

That’s perfectly reasonable.

You don’t need to have spent thirty years attending black-tie galas to make a charitable bequest.

Instead of asking:

“Which charity do I love?”

Ask:

“What problem would I actually enjoy helping solve?”

Animals?

Veterans?

Libraries?

Medical research?

Domestic violence prevention?

Food insecurity?

The arts?

Historic preservation?

Environmental conservation?

Scholarships?

Legal services?

Your local fire department?

Your hometown?

You may discover that you care deeply about an issue even though you have never developed a relationship with an organization addressing it.

Once you identify the issue, you can research organizations doing credible work in that area.

You don’t have to fall in love with a charity.

Competence is perfectly acceptable.

Option Three: Create Scholarships

This can be particularly appealing for someone who doesn’t have an obvious charitable beneficiary.

You can establish a scholarship through a university, community foundation, or other appropriate organization.

And you can make the criteria meaningful to you.

Perhaps you were the first person in your family to attend college.

Create a scholarship for first-generation students.

Perhaps you built a successful plumbing company.

Fund scholarships for students entering the trades.

Perhaps someone gave you an opportunity early in your career that changed your life.

Create that opportunity for somebody else.

You could potentially fund scholarships for decades.

Every year, another student receives help because you decided tuition was a better use of your money than financing your nephew’s third attempt at opening a sports bar.

That’s a legacy.

Option Four: Animals

Never underestimate the estate-planning power of animals.

I have met people who struggle enormously with the question of leaving money to relatives but become completely decisive when dogs enter the conversation.

“Children? Absolutely not.”

“Dogs?”

“HOW MUCH DO THEY NEED?”

If you love animals, shelters and rescue organizations can be wonderful beneficiaries.

You can support veterinary care for families who can’t afford it.

You can fund spay-and-neuter programs.

You can support service-dog organizations.

You can help wildlife rehabilitation.

You could potentially create an endowment providing continuing support.

And yes, you should separately plan for your own pets.

Your Labrador cannot inherit $3 million outright.

This will disappoint the Labrador.

The Labrador had plans.

But a properly structured pet trust can provide funds and instructions for an animal’s care, subject to applicable state law.

Just don’t fund it so extravagantly that your relatives have to watch your Chihuahua travel first class while they received nothing.

Actually, depending on the family, maybe that’s exactly what you should do.

Option Five: Your Community

Sometimes the best answer is surprisingly close to home.

Look around the place where you’ve lived.

Your local library.

A volunteer fire company.

A park.

A community theater.

A food pantry.

A museum.

A school.

A hospital.

A community foundation.

Maybe there isn’t one organization you care about enough to receive $5 million.

Fine.

Five organizations can receive $1 million each.

Or fifty can receive $100,000.

There is no rule requiring your philanthropic philosophy to fit on a bumper sticker.

Option Six: Let a Community Foundation Figure It Out

This is one of my favorite answers for the person who says:

“I want the money to do something useful, but I have absolutely no interest in figuring out what.”

Community foundations exist throughout the country and support charitable organizations within particular geographic areas or fields.

Depending on the arrangement, you may be able to establish a fund that supports broad categories of charitable activity rather than selecting every ultimate recipient yourself.

Essentially:

“I made the money. You people figure out who is doing something worthwhile with it.”

For some people, that’s perfect.

You can establish parameters without micromanaging the future.

Option Seven: A Donor-Advised Fund

A donor-advised fund can also be useful for someone who wants charitable flexibility.

You contribute assets to a sponsoring charitable organization and recommend grants to qualified charities over time, subject to the sponsoring organization’s control and applicable rules.

This can be particularly useful if you know you want money dedicated to charitable purposes but haven’t yet decided exactly which organizations should receive it.

It can also become part of a broader charitable and tax strategy during your lifetime.

The important point is that you don’t necessarily need to identify Charity X today simply because you know you ultimately want some of your estate devoted to charity.

Option Eight: Build Something

Maybe writing checks doesn’t excite you.

Would putting your name—or your mother’s name, your dog’s name, or literally anyone’s name except your brother’s—on something make you happier?

A scholarship fund.

A reading room.

A park.

A research fund.

A lecture series.

A community center.

A university program.

An animal shelter wing.

Depending on the size of your estate and the institution involved, you may be able to create something that continues long after you’re gone.

This can be particularly satisfying for people who don’t have descendants they want to benefit.

Your family tree may end.

Your impact doesn’t have to.

Option Nine: Reward the People Who Actually Made Your Life Better

Estate planning doesn’t have to be philosophical.

Maybe there are people who made your life materially better.

A longtime caregiver.

An employee who stayed with your business for twenty-five years.

A friend who showed up whenever you needed help.

A housekeeper you trust completely.

A godchild.

A mentor.

A neighbor.

Someone who isn’t technically family but behaved more like family than your family did.

You can acknowledge those relationships.

Just be thoughtful about how you do it.

Large unexpected gifts can create tax, benefits, employment, or family complications depending on the recipient and circumstances.

And if a beneficiary has disabilities or receives means-tested government benefits, leaving money outright can be particularly problematic. Appropriate trust planning may be necessary.

Option Ten: Give Some of It Away While You’re Alive

There is another radical possibility:

Don’t wait until you’re dead.

If you have more money than you are likely to need, lifetime giving allows you to experience something your estate plan cannot provide:

Watching the money do something.

Pay someone’s tuition.

Help someone buy a home.

Support an organization.

Fund a program.

Make a meaningful gift.

You get to see the result.

You also get to determine whether the recipient does something sensible with the first gift before deciding whether there should be a second.

This is useful information.

If you give your nephew $25,000 and he immediately buys a jet ski despite living in an apartment, congratulations: you have just conducted extremely valuable estate-planning research.

“But I Want to Make Sure My Family Doesn’t Contest It”

Now we’re getting to the real question.

If you’re leaving millions of dollars away from the people who would normally expect to inherit, you should assume somebody may be unhappy.

Possibly extremely unhappy.

Possibly “I have retained counsel” unhappy.

The larger the estate and the more unusual the distribution, the more important careful planning becomes.

That can mean documenting capacity, avoiding undue-influence concerns, using clear language, coordinating beneficiary designations, properly funding trusts, and making sure the overall plan is internally consistent.

A will saying “my children receive nothing” doesn’t accomplish much if your $4 million IRA still names the children as beneficiaries.

Your estate plan is an ecosystem.

The will, trust, deeds, retirement accounts, life insurance, payable-on-death accounts, transfer-on-death arrangements, business interests, and other assets need to work together.

This is not the moment for a $39 internet will.

You have millions of dollars.

Spring for the lawyer.

Don’t Use Estate Planning Solely as a Weapon

There is a difference between intentionally choosing beneficiaries and designing an estate plan exclusively to deliver one final insult.

The first is planning.

The second is how probate lawyers buy vacation homes.

If you don’t want someone to inherit, that’s your decision.

But the strongest estate plans tend to focus on what you want your money to accomplish, rather than constructing an elaborate financial middle finger from beyond the grave.

You don’t need to leave Cousin Eddie $1 because somebody once told you that proves you didn’t forget him.

You don’t need seventeen paragraphs explaining why your daughter disappointed you.

You don’t need your executor to read a prepared statement beginning, “Now that you’re all gathered here…”

Your documents should accomplish your objectives cleanly and defensibly.

Save the drama for Thanksgiving.

The Best Question Isn’t “Who Gets My Money?”

If you dislike your family and don’t have a favorite charity, you’re not actually out of options.

You simply haven’t asked the right question yet.

Instead of:

“Who gets my money?”

Try:

“What do I want my money to do after I’m gone?”

Educate people?

Protect animals?

Improve your community?

Support research?

Reward friends?

Help people start businesses?

Preserve land?

Fund legal services?

Give young people opportunities you didn’t have?

Once you answer that question, finding the appropriate beneficiaries becomes much easier.

And if your answer is:

“I have $8 million, three children I can’t stand, no favorite charity, two elderly dogs, a wonderful neighbor, and a vague desire to help kids go to college.”

Believe it or not, that’s enough information to start building a pretty interesting estate plan.

Your children may not love it.

The dogs probably will.

And somewhere, a student who never knew you may graduate from college debt-free because of a decision you made decades earlier.

There are worse ways to spend your millions.

Especially since you can’t take them with you.

Disclaimer: This post is for general informational and entertainment purposes only and is not legal, tax, financial, or estate-planning advice. Estate, trust, inheritance, spousal-rights, and tax laws vary by jurisdiction and individual circumstances. Anyone considering substantial charitable gifts, disinheritance, trusts, or other significant estate-planning decisions should consult qualified legal and tax professionals.