The landscape of North American wealth is on the brink of a historic shift. Current research estimates that between $75 trillion usd and $125 trillion usd ($102.5 trillion cad and $170.8 trillion cad) will change hands over the next two decades in American alone as assets pass from the baby boomer generation to younger heirs. This unprecedented movement of capital, now widely referred to as the Great Wealth Transfer, is set to redefine family finances, generational relationships, and the future of estate planning across North America.

While the transfer represents an extraordinary opportunity for Millennials and Gen Xers, it also carries significant legal and emotional risks. Attorney Don Ford, a Board-Certified expert in Estate Planning and Probate Law with Ford + Bergner LLP, warns that without thoughtful preparation, the same wealth intended to provide security can just as easily fracture families and ignite costly disputes.

A Scale Never Seen Before

“The scale of this transfer is unlike anything we have seen before,” explains Ford, Managing Partner at Ford + Bergner LLP—a Texas-based boutique firm specializing in estate planning, probate, and guardianship. “And when large sums of money move quickly through families that are unprepared, conflict becomes far more likely.”

Why This Is Happening Now

Several forces have converged to accelerate this moment.

Americans are living longer, allowing assets to compound over extended periods. Many individuals entering their later years benefited from decades of sustained market growth, dramatically increasing the value of retirement accounts, real estate holdings, and privately owned businesses. Together, longevity and market performance have produced estates that are often far larger and more complex than families anticipate.

Yet wealth has grown faster than planning.

“Many estate plans are static while wealth is dynamic,” Ford notes. “People create documents years earlier and assume they will still work, even though their family structure, asset values, and risks have changed.”

Why Planning Is an Act of Care

Estate planning is often misunderstood as a tax exercise or paperwork requirement. In reality, it functions as a roadmap that protects families, preserves intent, and prevents conflict.

Effective planning allows families to address challenges before they escalate. Trust structures can provide what Ford describes as “training wheels” for heirs who are not yet equipped to manage significant portfolios. Clear language can reduce ambiguity in blended families, ensuring spouses and children from prior marriages are treated according to the individual’s wishes rather than default statutes.

Business continuity is another frequent flashpoint. Without an agreed-upon succession plan, profitable family enterprises can be forced into liquidation simply because heirs cannot agree on control or direction.

“Planning is not about control from the grave,” Ford says. “It is about clarity while you are still here.”

The Rising Tide of Probate Litigation

As wealth transfers accelerate, probate courts in America are bracing for an increase in estate-related litigation and similar situations are set to occur in Canada and Mexico. According to Ford, several recurring issues are already driving disputes.

Cognitive decline and undue influence are among the most common triggers. As older adults reach their eighties and nineties, dementia and other impairments become more prevalent. Late-life changes to wills or trusts are frequently challenged by heirs who believe a loved one was pressured or lacked capacity.

Blended family dynamics also play a major role. Modern families often include second marriages, stepchildren, and competing expectations. When individuals die without updated documents, intestacy laws can produce outcomes no one intended, fueling resentment and lawsuits.

Ambiguous or outdated estate plans remain another risk factor. DIY documents and boilerplate language often fail under scrutiny, leaving courts to interpret vague instructions. Fiduciary disputes are equally common when executors or trustees are accused of mismanagement, lack of transparency, or favoritism.

Family-owned businesses present some of the most complex conflicts. When multiple heirs disagree over leadership, equity, or control, litigation can become the only path forward, sometimes ending in forced sale.

“The tragedy is that most of these disputes are preventable,” Ford emphasizes. “They arise not from greed, but from silence, assumptions, and documents that were never meant to handle modern family realities.”

The Bottom Line

The Great Wealth Transfer is not merely a financial event. It is a social and legal reckoning that will test families’ communication, planning, and preparedness. As trillions of dollars move between generations, proactive estate planning has become less about wealth preservation and more about relationship preservation.

For families willing to plan with intention, the transfer can strengthen legacies rather than divide them. For those who do not, the cost may be far higher than they ever expected.

For the Silo, Merilee Kern.

The recently deceased don’t always ingratiate themselves with their survivors when it comes time to read the will.

“People want to control things from the grave, not just throw a bunch of money in a beneficiary’s lap,” says family wealth guru John Pankauski, author of the new book, “Pankauski’s Trustee’s Guide: 10 Steps to Family Trustee Excellence.”

It’s their money so that’s their right.

But family members aren’t always crazy about how the deceased divided up the money or, if the inheritance was put into a trust, the restrictions that are placed on how the money is spent.

And often ill feelings among family members can bubble to the surface when money is at stake.

“I deal with sibling rivalries, petty jealousies and childhood grudges played out by adults who are decades older, but no more mature,” says Pankauski, founder of the Pankauski Law Firm (www.pankauskilawfirm.com), which specializes in trust and estate law. “It makes me think that part of my job is to be a wealth psychologist.”

Often, an inheritance isn’t doled out immediately. Instead, it’s placed in a trust with a trustee to oversee it, making decisions on when and how to distribute the money based on the terms of the trust.

In many situations, that works out fine. But in seriously dysfunctional families, that can make a bad situation borderline intolerable.

Pankauski says any number of factors can lead to family feuds or general disgruntlement over an inheritance. Here are just a few:

• Sense of entitlement. Many beneficiaries have a misplaced sense of entitlement to an inheritance. They just expect that mom or dad will leave them money or property. In their minds, it’s what they have coming to them. “The truth is, you can dispose of your property any way you want,” Pankauski says. “There is no right to an inheritance and just about anyone can be disinherited.”

So if people want to leave their money in a trust for a family pet, or bequeath everything to a neighbor, a mistress or a charity, they have every right to do so, assuming they are competent and know what they are doing. “It’s their money,” Pankauski says. “They can do with it as they wish.” Other than dealing with a spouse, there are almost no restrictions.

• The audacity of the trust. Family members often become frustrated and angry when they realize they inherited money, but it’s in a trust and there are strings attached. “The beneficiaries view trusts as handcuffs on their money,” Pankauski says. “A trust takes all those family members’ personal feelings and emotions, all that baggage, and adds money to create a financial stew into which the beneficiaries are thrown.”

Often, because beneficiaries don’t like it that a trustee gets to make decisions on when and how they get a portion of their inheritance, family members will seek counsel and try to “bust the trust.”

• An implied accusation of financial irresponsibility. At some point it may begin to dawn on beneficiaries that one reason the inheritance was placed in a trust is that the deceased didn’t view them as responsible with money. “That may seem insulting, but it doesn’t have to be,” Pankauski says. “Many would argue that most people are irresponsible with money, particularly a large sum of inherited money that appears out of the blue, much like winning a lottery.”
Sometimes at least a portion of the family animosity might be avoided by better planning when the will is being written and the trust created.
“When beneficiaries don’t get along,” Pankauski says, “it may make more sense to cut their financial ties by either creating multiple separate shares within the trust or creating separate trusts altogether.”

For the Silo, John Pankauski, LLP.

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