What Putting Off Estate Planning Can Cost

A business owner here in Charlotte reached out to the Portus team a couple of weeks ago. She was preparing for a medical procedure, one that carried a higher than normal level of risk. And that reality pushed something to the front of the line that had been sitting unfinished for two years and brought to light what putting off estate planning can cost.

The process had started. The conversations had happened. But life got busy, the business went through some difficult periods, she went through some difficult periods, and like so many things that don’t demand immediate attention, it kept getting moved aside. Until suddenly it couldn’t wait anymore.

What the Review Uncovered

Once the Portus team sat down to get everything tightened up quickly, the issues that surfaced were ones William Bissett sees regularly with business owners.

She owned her business 100%. Without the right documents in place, that makes it a probatable asset. Do you want your business going through the probate process, which can be lengthy, costly, and disruptive to operations? Almost always the answer is no.

She also owned the building the business operated out of, held in a separate LLC, also 100% owned by her. Same problem. Two businesses, two LLCs, both owned outright, both potentially subject to probate without the proper structure in place.

The solution was straightforward. A revocable trust, funded with both LLCs, structured to keep everything out of probate and ensure a clean transition if the worst were to happen. But the deeper issue is the one worth sitting with.

Why It Keeps Getting Pushed Aside

Estate planning has a particular quality that makes it easy to deprioritize. It doesn’t feel urgent until it is. When the business needs attention, you fix the business. When cash flow tightens, you focus on revenue. When life gets hard, you handle what is in front of you. And the estate documents, which don’t have a deadline until something forces one, keep getting pushed to next quarter.

That pattern is understandable. It is also one of the more common and costly mistakes William sees business owners make over the course of a career.

The Three to Five Year Rule

William closes with a practical framework every business owner should have on their calendar. Dust off your estate documents every three to five years. Review them. Make sure the people around you know what is in them, who serves in what capacity, and what the plan is if things don’t go the way you want them to.

Basic estate documents can typically be updated in a four to eight week window. More complex situations take longer. But the window is manageable, and the cost of not doing it is not.

Don’t wait for something to force your hand. The right time to update your estate documents is before you need them.

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We have a business owner here, kind of here in Charlotte, who reached out to us, um, a couple weeks ago, um, and she’s getting ready to have a, a medical procedure done, right? Um, certainly, um, not uncommon these days to, to go through something, and this one was a little bit more high risk than normal. And so, you know, the conversation naturally evolved into, well, wait a second, we started this estate planning process a couple years ago, and we…

It never really got wrapped up, right? The documents never got drafted. And It really pushed the envelope and said, “Well, wait a second. If, if we’re gonna have a higher than normal risk procedure, then we should, we should get [00:01:00] these things kinda tightened up pretty quickly.” And so it was just that kinda constant reminder that we get that reviewing estate documents as a business owner are highly relevant.

Um, the, the business was owned 100% by the entrepreneur, by the business owner. A common issue, right? Um, if we own it 100%, then, you know, it’s a probatable asset, and do we want a business to go through a probate? Um, almost always the answer to that is gonna be no. Um, the business sits in a building that the owner also owns 100%, right?

It’s an LLC, two separate LLCs. Um, she happens to own both hun- um, LLCs 100%, and so same thing. Do we want the business and the real estate that the business operates in to go through the probate process, which can be a long, lengthy process? And, and again, [00:02:00] the answer is almost certainly no. And so in her case, the, you know, solution was obviously to set up revocable trust, fund the revocable trust with LLCs.

Both of those things were taken care of ahead of time so that we were avoiding probate. And, you know, the, the, the issue at hand is a common issue for business owners, which is we started the process two years ago of updating estate documents that had last been updated pre-COVID, and then life got busy.

The, the business went through some periods of struggle. Um, the business owner herself went through some periods of struggle, and so as a result, when those things are happening, we rush to, to fix what we can and what’s most important. And in this instance, what was most important was the business, and therefore we end up neglecting the things that, that don’t have to be fixed right away.

In this case was the estate planning documents. And so, [00:03:00] you know, there, there are times where that certainly makes sense. There are other times where we’ve really got to try to stay on track. Having the proper estate planning documents in place is, is highly fundamental. It’s one of those things that, again, it got rushed to the front of the line when there was something that pushed it there, because everybody was aware of how important it was for it to be fixed and updated.

And so You know, as a business owner, um, generally speaking, updating estate documents, updating the basic estate documents is something that can be done in a four to eight-week period of time. And, you know, getting into the more complex documents can certainly take more time. But as a business owner, as w- as we get older, having those things documented, having those things in place, having the, the ex- the executive team around you know what to do under cer- cer- certain circumstances is really fundamental, and it’s important to the surviving, survivability of, [00:04:00] of, of the business if things go wrong.

So again, as a reminder, estate document is really and truly, as a business owner, you should dust them off every three to five years, review them, make sure that you understand what’s going on in them, that those around you understand what’s going on in them, those around you know who’s there to serve in different capacities, and what the team is in place to help things in the, in, again, in the event that things don’t go the way you want them to.

So dust those things off every three to five years. Make sure that they’re right, appropriate, and the way you want them to be if things end up going a, a, a way that you don’t want them to.​ 

ORIGINAL MEDIA SOURCE(S):

William Bissett: The Medical Procedure That Made Estate Planning Urgent Overnight | Portus Perspectives

Originally Recorded on June 3, 2026

Portus Perspectives: Episode 22

By /Published On: June 15, 2026/