Equal may not be fair

Many parents believe that dividing their estate equally among the children is a fair way to distribute their property.  However, this may not be the case.

The following excerpt is from Eileen Aj Connelly, With wills, 'equal' not always ' fair', Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, March 29, 2009, at D1:

Splitting assets evenly between siblings may seem like the equitable way to divide an estate * * *. But when issues like how much parents contributed to the education of one sibling or the caregiving role of another are factored in, what's fair may be quite different from an even split.

* * * [N]ever assume that after [parents] die, their children will work things out, especially when it comes to things like family heirlooms.