The Two Advisors Who Should Be Talking (But Often Aren’t)

There’s something Dan Borst says he loves about practicing law in Grand Rapids: the financial planners, the estate attorneys, the accountants, and the fact that a lot of them actually talk to each other. And when they do, the client ends up with a better result. An estate plan doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s built on the same foundation as your financial plan: your assets, how they’re titled, who’s named as beneficiary, and what you want your wealth to accomplish. So when your financial advisor and your estate planning attorney aren’t communicating, gaps form, and those gaps can get expensive.

Jeff Williams sat down with Dan Borst, a partner in the Private Client and Family Office Group at Warner Norcross + Judd, to talk about what effective coordination between advisors actually looks like, and where plans go wrong when it’s missing.

Someone has to make the call

There’s no formal playbook for collaboration between a financial advisor and an estate planning attorney. As Dan puts it, someone has to “take initiative and make the phone call and reach out and start the conversation.” From there, it becomes a give and take: the advisor often holds the full financial picture — assets, titling, beneficiary designations — while the attorney translates the family’s goals into documents that carry them out.

Your advisor is also frequently the “ears on the ground,” as Dan calls it. Since advisors meet with clients regularly, they often hear about the life events that should trigger an estate plan review — a business sold, a marriage, a divorce, a new grandchild on the way — years before an attorney would otherwise learn of them.

Jeff frames the advantage simply: because the team is “generally meeting with clients very often,” they “get to know the family, the family dynamics and charitable goals” that shape an effective estate plan.

The tax conversation has changed

Many families still assume estate planning is primarily about avoiding estate tax. But as Dan points out, it affects a fraction of a percent of Americans. Instead, the more common conversations involve income and capital gains taxes: whether to gift during your lifetime or hold assets for a step-up in basis, how property is titled, and how property tax rules affect assets like the family cottage.

That shift also means some older estate plans now work against the families they were designed to protect. Strategies that made sense decades ago, like certain bypass trusts, can create unnecessary complexity and forfeit valuable tax benefits today. Reviewing your plan can undo what no longer serves you and uncover real opportunities.

Charitable giving, done thoughtfully

For charitably inclined families, coordination pays off again. Qualified charitable distributions from IRAs, gifts of appreciated stock, and donor-advised funds can all magnify the impact of your giving while reducing your tax bill. But as Jeff and Dan agree, you have to be charitably inclined first. Taxes should inform how you give — never whether you give.

The takeaway

If you’ve been treating your financial plan and your estate plan as separate projects, make sure both sides are talking to each other. The best outcomes come when your professional team is working from the same information.

If any of this sounds like a conversation worth having, the Grand Wealth Management team would be glad to help you get everyone at the same table.

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_{Disclosure: The opinions referenced are as of the date publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is for informational use only should not be considered investment advice.}

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