Sense, Sensibility and Succession: What Jane Austen Can Teach Us About Estate Planning

What Sense and Sensibility Can Teach Us About Wills, Family and Inheritance

Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is remembered as a story about two sisters with very different approaches to love. Elinor Dashwood is measured and practical, while Marianne is emotional, romantic and far more inclined to follow her heart.

But before either sister's romantic story really begins, Austen sets the entire novel in motion with something much closer to our world at SLS Wills and More: an inheritance.

Henry Dashwood dies believing that his wife and daughters will be looked after. The family estate passes to his son, John Dashwood, from an earlier marriage, and Henry asks John to provide for his stepmother and half-sisters.

John agrees.

Unfortunately for the Dashwood women, there is quite a difference between somebody saying that they will look after your family and making proper provision to ensure that it happens.

When good intentions are not enough

One of the most memorable scenes near the beginning of the novel involves John discussing his father's wishes with his wife, Fanny.

Initially, John intends to give his sisters a substantial sum of money. Fanny questions whether this is really necessary. As the conversation continues, the proposed amount becomes smaller and smaller.

Eventually, John manages to convince himself that he can honour his father's wishes without providing anything like the financial support he had originally contemplated.

It is funny because Austen writes it brilliantly. It is also uncomfortable because the underlying situation is perfectly believable.

We occasionally meet people who tell us that they do not need to put something in their Will because their family already knows what they want.

Perhaps one child has been told to "make sure your sister is looked after". Someone might expect a surviving spouse to pass an inheritance on to the children eventually. A particular possession may have been verbally promised to somebody years ago.

There may be absolutely no reason to doubt the people involved.

The problem is that a conversation is not the same thing as putting appropriate arrangements in place.

People can remember conversations differently. Financial circumstances can change. Relationships can change. Someone can remarry. A beneficiary can die. What seemed straightforward when the conversation took place may look very different ten or twenty years later.

And, as John Dashwood demonstrates rather well, people can be remarkably good at convincing themselves that their interpretation is the reasonable one.

The Dashwoods are a blended family

There is another reason the opening of Sense and Sensibility remains interesting from an estate planning perspective.

This is a blended family.

Henry has a son from an earlier marriage and three daughters with his later wife. Although the terminology is modern, the family situation certainly is not.

Today, we regularly speak to people who have remarried, have children from previous relationships or have built families where simply leaving everything to one person may not achieve what they ultimately want.

A common intention might be for a surviving husband or wife to be financially secure while also making sure that children eventually inherit.

That can sound straightforward when discussed around the kitchen table. In practice, it deserves proper consideration.

What happens if the surviving spouse remarries? What if their Will later changes? What if the family home has to be sold? What if relationships between different sides of the family deteriorate?

None of those questions automatically means that a particular type of planning is required. Every family is different. They do, however, demonstrate why estate planning should start with the circumstances of the people involved rather than with assumptions about what will happen in the future.

Inheritance is about more than dividing money

Money influences relationships throughout Sense and Sensibility.

Edward Ferrars faces losing his inheritance because of the choices he makes. Willoughby's financial circumstances play an important part in his decision to marry Miss Grey rather than Marianne. Status, property and financial security sit quietly behind many of the supposedly romantic decisions in the novel.

That may feel very Georgian, but money and family relationships have hardly become completely separate in the two centuries since Austen was writing.

When somebody makes a Will, one of the questions they may need to consider is what "fair" actually means to them.

For some parents, the answer is a completely equal division between their children. For others, the circumstances are more complicated.

One child may already have received significant financial assistance. Another may have additional needs. There may be a family business in which only one child is involved. There may be stepchildren or other people whom someone considers part of their family but whose legal position is not necessarily what they assume.

The important point is not that there is one correct way to divide an estate. There isn't.

It is that the person making the Will has properly considered what they want to achieve and received advice about how best to achieve it.

What would happen in your family?

Most of us do not own a Sussex estate or have relatives debating our inheritance in a drawing room, but the basic issue at the beginning of Sense and Sensibility has not disappeared.

If you died, would what you expect to happen actually happen?

That is a much more useful question than simply asking whether you have a Will.

You may have written one ten or fifteen years ago. Your children may now be adults. You may have grandchildren who did not exist when it was written. You might have moved house, started a business, separated, remarried or seen a significant change in your financial circumstances.

Your Will could still exist while no longer properly reflecting the life you have today.

Estate planning is therefore not something that should necessarily be completed once and forgotten about.

At SLS Wills and More, we encourage clients to review their Wills regularly and particularly when something significant changes in their lives.

Perhaps Austen had the title right after all

There is something rather appropriate about Sense and Sensibility when thinking about estate planning.

There is the practical side: understanding your estate, considering who should benefit, thinking about possible future circumstances and making sure the right documents are in place.

Then there is the human side: family, relationships, responsibility and the people you want to protect.

Good estate planning has to consider both.

Henry Dashwood knew what he wanted. He wanted his wife and daughters to be provided for after his death. The problem was that achieving his wishes depended heavily on somebody else deciding what those wishes really meant.

More than 200 years later, that remains a useful reminder.

If something matters to you, do not rely solely on your family knowing what you would have wanted.

Put the right planning in place.

If it has been some time since you reviewed your Will, or your family circumstances have changed, the team at SLS Wills and More can help you look at your current arrangements and consider whether they still do what you intended.