When you bite the bullet and decide to do estate planning, do you go to an attorney and ask for a document? If so, the focus is in the wrong place.

You don’t want a document. You want certain things to happen at various points in the future.

You want your farm and other investments managed according to your wishes if you become disabled. Upon your death, you probably want your estate to take care of your spouse for life, and then go to your children. Maybe your farming child gets the equipment even if your spouse is living.

As your spouse and then children receive the estate, you want to protect it from predators like lawsuits and divorces. You want to hedge against estate taxation when assets pass from your children to their heirs.

You may have more specific long-term goals. The farming child needs the right to rent land from his siblings. Perhaps all your children should have a preferential opportunity to buy land before any could sell outside the family. In case your estate, combined with your spouse, exceeds $4 million in value, you want to assure that estate taxes are avoided. Then minimize expense and red tape like probate court.

This is where living trusts shine, but there is no one-size-fits-all trust form for this. So, if you go to the attorney and ask for the recommended document, you need to have a thorough discussion about these goals. You must fully disclose your asset information, with realistic values assigned to everything.

Related:What will Trump mean for taxes on the farm?

Estate planning failures

What could go wrong?

First, what sort of attorney are you working with? Is it the one who helped your son through his divorce, filed the articles of organization for your corporation, printed the health care power of attorney form for your mom, and did the closing for your last land purchase? You might have chosen that one because, after all, he says he also does living trusts.

When discussing your goals, here are words to look out for: “You could do that, but most of my clients do …” If you hear that, chances are that whatever you have described is outside of this attorney’s comfort zone, and they are aiming to move you toward their standard form documents.

Maybe this attorney is not comfortable with larger estates and tax planning. Maybe they don’t quite know how to ensure that inherited assets stay protected in your children’s hands. Maybe an enforceable right-to-rent is a bit challenging, as is a right-of-first-refusal to keep the farm in the family.

Get it in writing

If your goals never actually make it into the written plan, your goals are not likely to be achieved. Don’t just hope your kids will do what you wanted. Goals like predator protection cannot be achieved even if heirs agree. They must be written in your plan.

The second way that estate plans routinely fail is a lot more tedious. Maybe you have an attorney who really was up to the task of personalizing your plan to your detailed objectives. Your living trust, and perhaps some ancillary documents, truly spell out the way you want things to happen, how your assets will be managed during your disability, and then how you want things to pass after your death. It’s all there, and it gives you peace of mind.

But don’t stop too soon! What if your land is held in joint tenancy with your spouse? On your death, that land ignores your plan. For your plan to avoid estate taxes and provide for your spouse as intended, the land must be deeded to your trust before you die.

How about the machinery? It is considered jointly owned with your spouse, so it will remain with him or her. For the trust to work, the two of you must assign equipment ownership to your trust while you are living.

Any joint savings, checking and investment accounts also would pass to your spouse, missing the instructions in your trust. Even life insurance, in order to follow your tax and protection plan, must be put in your trust instead of passing to your spouse as designated beneficiary.

For your plan to work, everything you own needs to be moved into, or made payable on death to, your living trust.

Got goals? Do everything it takes to bring them to fruition.