It is a blessed event, one that the whole family has been waiting for. The new baby. Poetic, it is that at the beginning of life, you are already planning for the end of life. Yet, over the past 20-plus years in planning practice, many young parents enter the most exciting and demanding phase of their lives with no estate planning. No will, no guardians for small children, not enough or no life insurance at all, and no idea if the beneficiaries on pension and investments structures reflect their current situation.

But right now life takes over, for so many parents each and every day becomes even more hectic. It may be years before anyone thinks to review the vital components of life planning. In the recently revised predicted longevity environment of youngsters today, the plans that a parent may (or may not) have made will have an affect on this exciting new member of the family for the next 100 years.

Think about it. A child born today has a 50 percent chance to reach 100 years of age.

A child born 50 to 65 years ago is fast becoming an elder of society today. As a carefree child during the Great War and post war 1950's years, if you had extra detail-oriented parents (I like to think that all parents are conscientious) they provided as best they could, possibly with the planning tools and finances that they had available.

Most of our parents (and their parents) were uncomfortable talking about anything as intimate and personal as finances, especially way back when. Frankly, it was considered none of our business, expressed as "children should be seen, but not heard".

They might have put together basic wills, or if some success had shone on them, settled a trust to protect you and your siblings as minors, issued a letter of wishes that was current and satisfactory for the day and the jurisdiction one resided in. The finance, legal, tax, and trust laws of each country appeared more isolated, specific to each jurisdiction and never the twain shall meet. It seemed to the average person that one country could not try to assert taxing rights over another. And, why should they? So those times of lives passed so quickly; once trusts/wills/conveyancing in place - that's the end of it - no additional discussion needed.

We live in a global society now, electronically and physically changing everyday. What was perfectly legal and acceptable years ago, may be contra-indicated today. The careful legacy planning of a parent may assume completely different proportions and implications due to the changing nature of the parents themselves, their businesses, their associates, their beneficiaries, and their advisors. The identity compositions of populations are changing: we are mobile, we are diverse and we want diversity in experiences, nationalities and jurisdictions. Jobs change, benefits are restructured, people marry, divorce, have multi-national and multi-continent relationships, drift apart, immigrate, or return to a homeland far easier than ever before.

Even with careful planning, these various criteria and many more can precipitate unintended financial consequences, when the effect of changing personal landscapes is ignored.

Here are a few composite situations:

1. Spouse X secures a great job and has a large group term life insurance policy with a successful global corporation. The benefit package states that at age 65, the policy is reduced to 25 percent of the original face value. Ten years pass. Spouse X allows his personal life insurance policies to lapse; he feels they are an unnecessary additional expense. At age 66, he passes. The group life policy, the only one left, covers less than 15 percent of the remaining mortgage on the family home.

2. Wife owns family homestead with his sister. Wife and hubby live in the home, paying a minimal rent. For years, they've mutually discussed buying out the sister's interest. Beloved wife dies; widower and sister (now sole owner of the home) have a falling out over a purported romantic entanglement. Sister asserts right of ownership and evicts the widower and his two small children.

3. The matriarch has had a long successful life. She is now 92 years old. Two of her children emigrated from Bermuda years ago, to the United States and Canada. Her third child is now on her third husband. Her will (not updated in twenty years) dictates that her three children are to be treated equally that upon her passing all assets are to be sold, with proceeds transferred into a Bermuda trust for child/grandchildren for distribution. Has an estate process been transformed into something more complex? Can all beneficiaries be treated equally if one or more become tax-disadvantaged? Can she protect the estate from the assumed ravages of multiple marriages? Is she still compos mentis (possessing a sound mind)? Is it too late to late to plan ahead?

4. The beneficiaries of a foreign trust have been left shares in a privately-held foreign holding corporation. The corporation owns a real estate property with business tenants, an international investment portfolio and other local investment shares. Two of the beneficiaries are dual-nationals with United States, one is married to US citizen, and one beneficiary wants to move to the UK with his spouse. There are several other shareholders, unrelated to the family and their personal information, such as nationality, is still unclear. New trustees have just been appointed. Beneficiaries have been advised to get tax advice; unfortunately, they aren't even sure of the appropriate questions to ask.

5. A soon-to-be retired adult child of one US parent born abroad was told by authorities as a very young man he had no rights to US citizenship. He receives an inheritance from the long-neglected ancient divorced parental relationship, only to be informed that yes, he is a US citizen, and yes, he is needs to file US tax returns. He is overwhelmed with sadness and happiness and complete bewilderment.

Life plans, even on an informal basis, should be reviewed every six months, and certainly before major life changes decisions are made or occur. Situations such as when significant resources in a family business are at stake, then trust and estate planning should be reviewed regularly with the specific purpose of maintaining tax and legal compatibility for all beneficiaries and the jurisdictions they reside in. Nationalities and families change. Legal and estate financial documents such as wills, Guardianship and Power Of Attorney, Advance care directives, titling and Protection of property and assets, meeting financial needs of the survivor, government programmes, if available, and other professional resources should be compiled and kept in a permanent easy-to-find files.

No point in spending hours of planning, consulting with planning and trust professionals only to have the structure fail due to inadequate ongoing overview.

You can't control everything, but planning for all phases of your life as enthusiastically as living in the now, eliminates stress, promotes good financial management and actually prolongs quality of life.

The series will discuss the following over the next few months: insurance, employee benefits, multiple citizenship/nationalities and the added complexity to people's lives, estate planning - wills, trusts, foreign grantor and non-grantor, controlled foreign corporations, passive foreign investment companies, conveyancing, the passing of a parent, expatriates in our foreign jurisdiction. Retirement and cash/investments are covered separately.

Martha Harris Myron, CPA, CFP(US) TEP(UK) JP- Bermuda is an international Certified Financial Planner™ practitioner. She specialises in independent fee-only cross-border tax, estate, investment, and strategic retirement planning services for Bermuda residents with cross-border and multi-national connections, internationally mobile people and US citizens living abroad. For more information, contact martha.myron@gmail.com or 735-4720.