A recent Sun Herald article points out that thorough estate planning will prevent feuds among family members over sometimes trivial issues like who gets what when a family member dies.  Comprehensive planning will incorporate issues like family heirlooms in addition to the larger financial assets that a family has to divide.  Addressing such issues on the front end will avoid disputes between siblings and ensure that your estate is divided the way that you want.  An experienced estate planning attorney skilled in addressing such issues can be critical to assure that all loose ends are addressed.  Additionally, it is often appropriate and important to build in flexibility into an estate plan so that subsequent changes can be made, such as leaving a memorandum to divide personal property.  Such a memorandum can allow for periodic changes to the plan as the family member needs change, without requiring the involvement of an attorney each time a change is contemplated.  Such memorandum planning is only available as part of a living trust based plan.