Passing on Values, Not Just Assets: Ethical Wills and Estate Planning

When we think about estate planning, we often focus on the practical things: money, property, investments, and who will receive them when we die.

But your legacy can be about much more than what you own.

It can include the values you lived by, the lessons you learned, the experiences that shaped you, and the things you want your loved ones to know after you’re gone.

That’s where the idea of an Ethical Will comes in.

An Ethical Will is not a legal Will. It’s a personal way of passing on the things that can’t be measured in dollars.

And while the traditional concept of an Ethical Will has a long history, you don’t need to follow a particular tradition, religion, or format to create one. You can make it your own.

1. What is an Ethical Will?

An Ethical Will is a personal document where you share your values, beliefs, life lessons, hopes, memories, and messages for the people you love.

Unlike a legal Will, it isn’t used to distribute your property and it isn’t legally binding.

It’s about the person behind the estate plan.

An Ethical Will might be a letter, a collection of stories, a series of reflections, or even recorded messages. There’s no prescribed format.

For some people, it might focus on the lessons they’ve learned throughout their life. For others, it might be about their hopes for their children, their family traditions, their beliefs, or the things they want their loved ones to remember.

2. How can you include an Ethical Will in your modern estate plan?

You might love the idea of an Ethical Will but feel unsure about where it fits into your estate plan.

For our clients, this is where the Letter of Wishes can play an important role.

Your Will is a formal legal document. It deals with matters such as who receives your estate, who will administer it, and other legal arrangements.

Your Letter of Wishes is different. It’s an informal document that allows you to provide guidance and record the things that don’t necessarily belong in your Will.

There are no set rules about what your Letter of Wishes must contain.

It can be practical, personal, emotional, or a combination of all three.

Your Letter of Wishes can provide an opportunity to:

Express your values and beliefs

Share what has been important to you throughout your life, whether that’s family, kindness, hard work, generosity, creativity, faith, community, or something completely different.

Pass on life lessons

What have you learned through the good times and the difficult ones? What would you want your children, grandchildren, or loved ones to know?

Share your hopes for your loved ones

You can record your hopes for the people you leave behind, including the kind of life, relationships, or experiences you hope they have.

Express love and gratitude

Sometimes the things we feel most strongly are the things we don’t say often enough.

Your Letter of Wishes can be a place to tell the people you love what they mean to you.

3. How we approach a Letter of Wishes

A Letter of Wishes can be much more than a few practical instructions for your executor or trustee.

At Sun Wills & Estates, we see it as an opportunity to capture the person behind the legal documents.

That’s why our My Estate Plan Workbook includes a dedicated Letter of Wishes section, with prompts to help you think about the things you might want to leave behind beyond your assets.

It includes opportunities to reflect on meaningful chapters of your life, record important information, share wisdom, and write letters to the people you love.

It gives you somewhere to put the things that are important to you, but don’t necessarily belong in your Will.

And because no two people have the same life, no two Letters of Wishes need to look the same.

4. Why should you consider writing a Letter of Wishes?

Your Letter of Wishes can become something your loved ones return to long after your estate has been administered.

It can:

Help your loved ones understand you

Your family may know you well, but there will always be parts of your life, experiences, and perspectives they haven’t heard about or can’t remember.

Writing them down gives you the opportunity to share those stories in your own words.

Preserve family stories and memories

You can record stories about your childhood, your parents and grandparents, important family traditions, or experiences you want future generations to know about.

Pass on your values

You can explain what has mattered to you and why.

This can be particularly meaningful for parents who want to leave their children something that goes beyond their financial inheritance.

Provide comfort after your death

A letter written in your own words can become something incredibly personal for your loved ones to hold onto after you’re gone.

Say the things you want to say

You can express love, gratitude, encouragement, apologies, or simply tell someone how much they meant to you.

There’s something powerful about hearing those words in the voice of the person who wrote them.

5. What could you include in your Letter of Wishes?

There are no set rules for what belongs in your Letter of Wishes.

You might include:

Your values and beliefs

What matters most to you? What principles have shaped the way you live?

Life lessons

What have you learned about relationships, parenting, work, failure, success, grief, or simply being a human?

Family stories

Are there stories about your childhood, grandparents, parents, or family history that you want future generations to know?

Hopes for your children

If you have children, what do you hope for their lives? What do you want them to remember when they’re making difficult decisions or going through challenging times?

Family traditions

Are there recipes, celebrations, traditions, places, or rituals that you’d love your family to continue?

Messages of love and gratitude

Who has made a difference in your life? What would you want them to know?

Words you want your loved ones to hear

Sometimes there are things we wish we had said while someone was still here.

Your Letter of Wishes gives you the opportunity to say them.

Your legacy is more than what you leave behind

Your Will deals with your legal wishes for your estate.

Your Letter of Wishes can tell the story behind those wishes and preserve the parts of your legacy that don’t belong in your Will.

Your estate plan can be about more than who gets your house, your investments, or your belongings.

It can also be about what you want to leave in the hearts and minds of the people you love.

At Sun Wills & Estates, we believe there’s a place for both the legal and the deeply personal parts of estate planning.

If you’d like to create an estate plan that reflects not just what you own, but who you are, let’s chat.