How to Start Starting your Estate Plan

With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

We talked yesterday about estate planning. We’re going to continue on that line of thinking today with Dr. Shannon Ferrell. He is an agricultural economics professor at Oklahoma State University.

We established yesterday that it’s best to get a plan for transition for your farm or ranch together when everyone is healthy and happy. And then also realized that not everybody’s contribution to the operation is the same. Therefore splitting things up 50/50 or 33/33/33 depending on how many people might be part of this plan, that doesn’t always make the most sense.

And while these are simple things to tell you about, they are not so simple to actually put into motion. And the biggest part is just getting started and doing so early. Ferrell had these tips on that front.

“I think the most important thing to do is start. Just do one thing. And if you need help getting that started, it’s simply just rounding up what you’ve got. Do a really good deep-dive inventory on all of your assets. But also do a deep dive on your people. So who is involved in the operation? Who has an economic connection to it? Who has an emotional connection to it as well? Just get the pieces of the puzzle together and you’ll find as part of doing that, you’re already starting to generate ideas about how those pieces might mover over time.”

Again Oklahoma State University’s Dr. Shannon Ferrell.