An estate plan can certainly be written with relatively equal bequests. If you have multiple beneficiaries, they all receive a similar portion of the estate. It can sometimes be hard to split up sentimental items, but you could divide financial assets equally or leave assets like a family home to multiple people jointly.
That said, we recently discussed how a business succession plan does not have to be equal. Someone who has two children does not have to make them co-owners of the business. They can just pick one adult child that they want to take over instead.
With this in mind, could you leave unequal bequests in your estate plan?
It is possible, but it can cause disputes
You certainly can split up your estate in an unequal fashion. You may want to disinherit a certain beneficiary, for instance, or you may know that one person has a greater financial need than another, so you leave them more significant assets to help meet this need. You are not obligated to split things up evenly.
The main problem that you face with unequal bequests is that they can cause disputes between beneficiaries. This is especially true if you have not talked to the beneficiaries in advance, so they all expect to receive an equal portion. They may be frustrated when they do not, leading to will challenges, allegations of undue influence and things of this nature.
You do have a lot of flexibility with how you want to create your estate plan, but be sure that you carefully consider all of your legal options at this time.