I haven't read any other posts on this, so if I am speaking redundantly, I apologize in advance.
Also, I'm sure before I even go any further that this will probably be kinda long, but please read all of it, and ask any questions that you may have.
This help may be free, but the information is invaluable (if I can say so myself).
hi everyone! my hubs and i have been talking about making a will so our kids will be taken care of. we dont have much money or anything but we want to make sure its all in writing and whoever we decide to give them to if something happens to us will have things in order.
Here are some things to keep in mind.
Firstly, whether you have a
Will or not, your estate will still go to probate. A
Will does not avoid probate. Probate can be expensive, and time-consuming, but that's not an absolute in every case, and a
Will can definitely be helpful to avoid that situation.
If your estate is worth less than $50,000, someone in your family would create what is called a
"Small Estate Affidavit". No need for probate for an estate of that size.
In any case, when it comes to your children, and any of your personal belongings, you're looking for someone you trust to handle your estate.
And actually, I'll talk about a
Trust a little later, but for now, we'll stick with the
Will.
Whether you think you're not worth much (or don't have much) right now can mean very little about the future, because you may have more value in the future (a house paid-off, life insurance policies, retirement accounts, vehicles, expensive jewelry etc.).
A
Will doesn't own anything, so any property, whether personal or real (estate) cannot be owned by a
Will, thus it cannot give anything away. You can say in your
Will that you want
so-and-so to get that special pendant necklace with the gemstones on it, but the
Will doesn't own it, so that item would merely become part of the estate, and the probate trustee decides what will happen to it. When there's a
Will, the trustee would follow the
Will, but when there's no
Will, the trustee decides its fate after the probate process. This same principal applies to all other personal property and real estate.
In a
Will, there are some basic elements (Articles).
One Article outlines your family situation, such as married (and to whom), or divorced, or widowed/widower (etc.), then the number and the names of your children. So, it'd be something like, "
I am married to (this dude's name) and I have two children, namely (little dude's name) and (little girl's name)."
Typically, a second Article should revoke any previous
Will and
Codicils ever made, even if you've never made one before, just in case someone would contend you created a different one at some other point (this would be a fake).
Another Article will be your
general bequests, where you outline who gets what (like that pendant I mentioned above). As long as these things are outlined, then the probate trustee will follow your wishes. For anything that's not outlined, they will decide based on the results of their process.
A similar, yet more broad Article for this same type of thing is called
residuary bequests, in which case the entirety of your estate either goes to one person (or people), or you have everything go into a
Trust you've created. For a
Will that says everything in your estate goes into a
Trust is known as a
Pour-over Will.
After that, another Article will be the one where you name your Executor(s)/Executrix(es), and outline their powers, and whether or not they should be bonded and other things.
Next, for people with children, they'd have an Article that names the guardian(s) of their estate, and also the guardians of any minors (children).
That's pretty much the basics of a
Will (or
Pour-over Will as the case may be).
There should only be one
signed Will, and any others would be
unsigned copies. You should have the original and solely signed
Will stored in a safe place.
but... everyone in my circle that i have surveyed has said they want one, but havent gotten around to it yet. so i am casting a wider net - surely some of you out there must be ahead of the game.
I've had a
Will since I was 19 (I'm 39 now), and have updated it accordingly since that age. I also have a
Healthcare Power of Attorney (created when I was 19), and also a
Trust (created when I was 27). My Wife and I also have a
Trust that owns our house (some people might call that a
Land Trust). My wife also has her own
Will and her own personal
Trust.
You may have also heard of a
Living Will and I already mentioned my
Healthcare Power of Attorney. These two documents are very similar.
I will state this in a very basic sense, as to avoid another 1,000 words about this specific subtopic-
A
Living Will is a document that says what you want done to you in situations where you are incapacitated, and cannot speak for yourself (life sustenance, treatments, etc.). In this case,
the document speaks for you.
A
Healthcare Power of Attorney is a document that says who you have appointed to decide what you want done to you in situations where you are incapacitated, and cannot speak for yourself (life sustenance, treatments, etc.). in this case,
a person speaks for you, and follows the wishes you've detailed to them about your decisions.
It is possible, though unnecessary, to have a
Living Will and a
Healthcare Power of Attorney.
In my opinion, and the opinion of the attorneys, a
Healthcare Power of Attorney is the best choice. You just have to make sure you are very detailed about your wishes in those life and death situations to the person or persons named as your agent(s).
In short, and in my opinion, you should have a
Will, a
Trust, and a
Healthcare Power of Attorney. Do you own a home, have life insurance policies, retirement account(s), moderately valuable personal belonging, on and on and on? Might you ever have those things?
how did you prepare it? was it expensive? did you find a lawyer in the phone book?
For one, with all due respect to anybody that has gone this route, I do not suggest doing it yourself with online software, or software you buy.
As for expense, that all depends on the lawyer, and the complexity of your
Will. At this office, the general cost for a simple
Will is $150. You may be able to get it done for less, but that doesn't mean it will be done well. I've seen $100 Wills and $75 Wills, and those are usually the ones cause problems for the people who are still here after your death. In other words, they're just not good.
I'm sure that people here who have a
Will can offer their attorney(s) as options for you, and that's fine. That is a much better option that just going through the phonebook. Obviously, I can also suggest the office here too. What you want to find is an attorney that will ask you all the necessary questions to be able to help you determine the best
Will for you both. If you have to pay a consultation fee just to see an attorney to discuss making a Will, find somebody else. The only time you should pay anything is for the Will, not the consultation leading to one.
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I mentioned a
Trust earlier, so I'll cover some of that too.
Sometimes, people will mention a
Living Trust, which is nothing more than a
Trust you've created while your alive. For instance, my wife and I have a
Trust that creates yet another
Trust upon our death, and
that Trust is not a
Living Trust (though it's not called a Dead Trust either). In other words, as long as you're alive, any
Trust you create is a
Living Trust.
A
Trust can actually owns things. If you own a house, you can have the
Trust named as the owner. If you have a retirement account, you can name the
Trust as the beneficiary of the account. This goes for life insurance policies too. If you have a 1970 1-of-a-kind Plymouth Roadrunner valued at $60,000, you can have it titled to the
Trust.
Having a
Trust, and having the
Trust own your stuff, will totally avoid probate. My house is owned by our family
Trust. My car is owned by my personal
Trust (though it doesn't need to be), and my life insurance policies and retirements account show my personal
Trust as Beneficiary. While I'm alive, I am the Trustee.
With a
Trust, there is no need to have a
Will that's a mile long with all your wishes for who gets what. When you have a
Trust, your
Will would merely say something like
"All the rest residue and remainder of my property and estate, real, personal or mixed, of whatsoever kind or nature, or wheresoever situated, which I may own or die seized of I give to the acting Trustee under a Declaration of Trust Agreement dated the 16th day of February, 2010 and known as the (Your Names Here) Declaration of Trust, dated February 16, 2010."
From that statement, everything of any kind that you own goes into the
Trust. A
Will that does that is called a
Pour-over Will, because everything
pours over into your
Trust.
Ultimately, my wife and I could get rid of our personal
Trusts, and merge everything we own into the family
Trust, but there are personal reasons for our current format. In most cases, a husband and wife would have only one
Trust in which they both act as Co-Trustees.
The importance of the
Trust is to name someone you trust as the Trustee. While you're alive, the Trustee(s) should be you. In my case, after my death, my wife and my brother-in-law are the Successor Co-Trustees of my personal
Trust. If my wife and I die at the same time (e.g. car accident), my brother-in-law is the sole Successor Trustee of that
Trust.
In most cases, the person named as the Trustee is the same person named as your agent in a
Healthcare Power of Attorney. Again, the Trustee should be someone you trust with all your stuff, and in the case of a
Healthcare Power of Attorney, also your life.
There is more to know, but then I'd need to ask all kinds of questions. I'll stop here.
So, feel free to ask me anything you like.
