The estate-transition briefing · Founded 2026

Kin & Estate

The family estate, explained calmly.

A briefing for families moving wealth from one generation to the next — the will, the house, the accounts, and the conversations nobody wants to start. Written plainly, checked by attorneys, sent weekly.

For the parent planning ahead

Begin before it is urgent.

Most estate plans are written once, filed away, and quietly drift out of date while the assets, the family, and the law move on. We cover the work of keeping a plan true: the will and when to amend it, the accounts that pass outside it, what to tell your children and when — so the plan your family finds one day is the plan you actually meant.

  1. Beneficiary designations that override the will
  2. Gifting while living, and when it backfires
  3. Financial power of attorney, explained
  4. Digital assets: the inventory nobody makes
  5. Second marriages and blended families
  6. The unequal-inheritance problem

For the executor & heirs

When the work lands on you.

Settling an estate is a year of unfamiliar paperwork handed to someone who is also grieving. We map the job stage by stage — the first thirty days, the court, the institutions, the house, the taxes, the distribution — with the deadlines named and the traps marked, so you can do it right the first time and stay on speaking terms with your siblings.

  1. The executor's first thirty days
  2. How long probate takes, state by state
  3. Co-executors: dividing work, not the family
  4. Selling the house from out of state
  5. Executor compensation, without the fight
  6. Vetting an advisor for inherited money

How this publication works.

Reviewed
Every statement of law, deadline, or tax mechanics is checked by a licensed attorney before it is published, and the review date is printed on the page. When the law changes, the page changes.
Education, not advice
We explain how the law and the process work. We do not apply them to your family's facts — that is what your attorney, CPA, and advisor are for, and we will always say so plainly.
No urgency
No countdowns, no fear, nothing engineered to hurry a decision that involves your family's money. If a page ever pressures you, we have failed our own standard.
Signed
A named person approves everything we publish. Nothing on this site is generated and shipped unread.

From the founder

I am currently going through multi-year estate planning with my own family — the asset inventory, the will drafting, the distribution planning across two heirs. The process is harder than it should be, in ways no one warns you about and no single professional sees end to end. Kin & Estate exists because I went looking for a publication that explained the whole of it calmly, and there wasn't one.

Peter Hjortsoe