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courts can be tough ... i mean we had a refinance stopped and all the lawyers had to get paid for the day . the will was missing a word ... just one word stopped the title company from allowing the closing .
that word was "ONLY " as in only child was so important . the will just reading , i leave my house and possessions to my child beth and not only child beth wreaked havoc on the closing .
That is my situation also. I just don't see any need to create a will when I have absolutely no one to give anything to, except a charity.
If you want to control which charity gets your assets you do need to specify. If you don't create a will you should at least designate the charity or charities as beneficiaries to your financial accounts. Every account needs to have at least one named beneficiary. A beneficiary can be a charity or organization as easily as a person.
What about your house or any property you own? Your car? You need to be able to specify, legally, what happens to those assets when you pass, unless you simply don't care and you're happy to let the state figure it out.
And what about your body? Do you want to be buried? Cremated? Sent to a specific cemetery? Do you want a headstone? You need to specify this in writing and have it properly written and notarized so someone can carry out your wishes.
If you want to control which charity gets your assets you do need to specify. If you don't create a will you should at least designate the charity or charities as beneficiaries to your financial accounts. Every account needs to have at least one named beneficiary. A beneficiary can be a charity or organization as easily as a person.
What about your house or any property you own? Your car? You need to be able to specify, legally, what happens to those assets when you pass, unless you simply don't care and you're happy to let the state figure it out.
And what about your body? Do you want to be buried? Cremated? Sent to a specific cemetery? Do you want a headstone? You need to specify this in writing and have it properly written and notarized so someone can carry out your wishes.
The bolded information should NOT be in your will. Too often, the deceased has been buried/cremated long before the will is considered.
You should specify this information in writing, and make sure to give it to the person who will be responsible for carrying out your final wishes. If you don't know who that person is, you might want to look into setting up your final wishes with a local funeral home -- a pre-need arrangement.
The bolded information should NOT be in your will. Too often, the deceased has been buried/cremated long before the will is considered.
You should specify this information in writing, and make sure to give it to the person who will be responsible for carrying out your final wishes. If you don't know who that person is, you might want to look into setting up your final wishes with a local funeral home -- a pre-need arrangement.
I never said it should be in the will, only that it should be documented and notarized so wishes can be followed.
I also didn't mention things like health care directive, durable power of attorney for finances or any of the other things that are important in estate planning, even for single people with no heirs or beneficiaries.
Has anyone on here ever used an online Will maker or software? If so, what has been your experience (good or bad) Would you recommend a certain online program or software to purchase?
I'm recently divorced and need to change my Will without spending a load of money. I'm also not sure if a Will would be ok or if I need to do a Trust. Very confusing LOL
Unless you have a significant net worth and a pretty simple estate to handle, I can't imagine why that wouldn't work. I would suggest filing with probate.
My wife and I had one of those wills for years. But as our assets grew and our children got older, our estate became more complex. For example, if my wife and I died in a plane crash, the last thing we'd want is several millions in life insurance benefits, stocks, and other assets dumped into the laps of our twenty-something kids. My daughter, the oldest, would likely be prudent with her money. My youngest might be as well. But I could see my middle child blowing it inside of a couple of years. He's a really smart kid, but not broken out with wisdom.
So we set it up with an executor so that our estate would go into a trust, with staged disbursements by age and education. For example, no child is allowed a significant portion of his inheritance until he completes a degree and has been working a couple of years in his chosen field. In other words, don't get a degree in the easiest thing possible, pick up a check after graduation and then head out to Thailand to live on the beach.
We have staged disbursements at ages 25, 30, 35, and 40. Because, as Warren Buffett said, we believe in giving our kids enough money to do anything, but not enough money to do nothing.
This is just some advice from a lawyer who doesn't do wills, but knows other attorneys who do write wills and trusts.
Lawyers love people that try to save $250.00 by trying to write their own will. Why? Because in the long run the mistakes that get made result in more work for lawyers.
I understand when significant amounts of money are involved that people are motivated to try and avoid some expenditures. However, anyone with an estate to leave can afford $250.00. Inheritance law can have many repercussions. It can be very difficult to imagine what all of the repercussions are when you actually make out a will. A good lawyer explains how different things that happen and slight nuances in the language of a will or testamentary instrument can radically affect what happens to your estate.
No matter how many times this talk is given there will always be people who will try to DIY. If you go that route, you need to understand things may not turn out the way you want.
Last edited by markg91359; 01-27-2019 at 03:53 PM..
how can it be ? because nothing in law is ever cut and dry and things are like a flow chart .. they only flow until they stop flowing .
In other words, as I suspect in my depths of pessimism, legal decisions do not reflect the wisdom of the law, but the spirit of justice., which is fundamentally lacking.
all i can tell you , is about what i experienced in court . at the end of the day it is all that matters ...
it is like a self defense shooting outside the home .. rarely is it just black and white like the law reads on the surface .. there is just different shades of gray.
my son is a corporate attorney ... his entire career is based on different shades of gray in the law .
in this case intent was very clear , if the court ruled the document was usable .
but because my wife's husband at the time died while his mom was still alive , the verbiage as to what happens next , if he died first was missing from the document . don't forget his mom was still alive when he died . everything could go to her husbands brother and not anything to my wife as that document stands .
while grandpa's documents showed intent by name that their son was included in the estate , there is no "intent " that shows anything should go to my wife and not everything to his brother in the will as written if the son died first ..... the document should have read " if either of my sons die first , their share goes to their family or children of that marriage .
" that is what was missing .
so to protect my wife's interest , the next step was to look at my wife's husbands will if grandpa's is deemed defective . . well that called for treating all children equally ...
the law required the court to notify the step children there is a conflict in their grand fathers will ... while they were specifically omitted the court may decide that document should not be used because my wife could get nothing because now everything could go to my wifes husbands brother because his mom was alive when he died and there is no "intent " that shows anything should go to my wife and not everything to his brother ....
so the judge advised us to make an out of court settlement based on the boy's fathers will because if he ruled the grandfathers will was to be used my wife may not be entitled to a thing by the same token since there is nothing that shows intent of passing anything to my wife vs her brother inlaw because of lack of wording dealing with this aspect
I still do not have enough information to understand this complex situation, but I am not convinced the will was in error.
After grandfather died, did everything go to his widow? If so, she could have changed the terms of the will after she died, if she was not happy with the way it was written.
Grandpa wanted the money to go to his biological son, not to his stepchildren or his biological son's wife. If he had felt otherwise, he would have said so in the will.
Did grandpa die before or after his biological son?
My feeling is that in the event of the biological son's death, grandpa and grandma wanted his wishes to take precedence, which is what eventually happened.
The reason I say all this is because I am in a similar situation. My will specifies that my estate goes to my biological nephew. There is currently no arrangement if, God forbid, he dies before I do. This is not an error or omission. I am leaving the estate to him, not to a future wife and children, at least until I have a chance to see how they turn out. If my nephew wishes to share my estate with others that I have not included, that is his right, as the estate goes to him without restrictions.
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