If you don’t have a Last Will and Testament (or more simply known as a Will) in place yet, you’re not alone. I can anecdotally confirm this through my casual observations as a financial planner.
Not having a Will is a problem because it — along with other estate planning documents — is what’s used to inform the courts of how you want your estate divided when you die.
What’s Considered My Estate?
Your estate consists of all the property you own, including real estate, personal property, bank accounts, retirement accounts, and life insurance policies.
Each of these asset types is titled in order to inform the courts how they are legally owned — individually, with someone else, or held in trust — and helps determine how to distribute them at your death.
What Happens When I Die?
When you die, your estate will go into probate, which is a legal process where your property is transferred to your heirs according to how you requested it to in your legal documents. But what if you die without a Will? Or as legal people like to put it “intestate”. Then the court gets to decide how to divvy up your estate.
Every state has different succession rules they follow. To give you a general idea of how it works, here is what it looks like in Indiana.
You Need A Will. Seriously.
As you can see, things can get complicated in a hurry. Even a simple situation like just a spouse and kids becomes problematic because half of the estate is given to the children outright. As one of my attorney friends puts it, “It’s
I know thinking and talking about your eventual demise is depressing but seriously, if you haven’t done any estate planning yet, I highly encourage it.
There are numerous resources on the web that can help you draft the basic documents you’ll need, however, nothing beats sitting down with an attorney to craft them with you.
By hiring an estate planning attorney, you’ll be able to avoid the pitfalls and potential headaches of trying to do it yourself.