All adults over age 18 should have a Will in place. Yet, for most people, creating a will is just one small part of an effective legal plan that works to keep your loved ones out of court and out of conflict. With this in mind, here we look at exactly what having a will in place will—and will not—do for you and your loved ones in terms of estate planning.

WHAT A WILL DOES:

A Will is a legal document that outlines your final wishes in regard to how your assets are distributed to your surviving family members. Here are some of the things having a Will in place allows you to do:

1. Choose how assets are divided upon your death: A Will’s primary purpose is to allow you to designate how you want your assets divided among your surviving loved ones upon your death. If you die without a Will, state law governs how your assets are distributed, which may or may not be in line with your wishes.

However, a Will only allows you to provide for the distribution of certain types of assets—namely, a Will only covers assets owned solely in your name. Other types of assets, such as those with a beneficiary designation and assets co-owned by you with others, are not affected by your Will.

2. Name an executor: In your Will, you can name the person, or persons, you want to serve as your executor (sometimes called a “personal representative”). Your executor is responsible for wrapping up your final affairs after your death. This includes: filing your Will with the local probate court, locating and managing all of your assets, paying off any debts you have outstanding, filing and paying your final income taxes, and finally, distributing your remaining assets to your named beneficiaries.

3. Name guardians for your minor children: If you are the parent of minor children, it is possible to name legal guardians for them in your Will. However, naming guardians for your children in your Will alone carries serious risk, and doing so may even leave your kids vulnerable to being taken into the care of strangers if something happens to you. This is true even if you’ve worked with another lawyer to create your Will because most lawyers haven’t studied and been trained on what’s necessary for ensuring the well-being and care of minor children.

Fortunately, whether you’ve named guardians for your kids in your Will or have yet to take any action at all, we can help. As your Personal Family Lawyer® firm, we offer a comprehensive system known as the Kids Protection Plan®. It fills in the gaps left by traditional estate planning and is included with every Life & Legacy Plan we prepare for families with young children.

And because protecting your children is such a critical and urgent issue, we’ve created a totally free website, where you can take the first steps to create legal documents naming long-term guardians for your children. While you should meet with us to put the full Kids Protection Plan® in place as soon as possible, this ensures your kids would be cared for by the people you would want in the way you would want should anything happen to you prior to completing your estate plan.

After you’ve completed those initial actions, schedule a Legacy Planning Session with us, so we can put the full Kids Protection Plan® in place and determine if there is anything else your family might need to ensure the well-being and care of your children.

4. Serve as a backup for a living trust: Because it can be difficult to transfer the legal title to every single one of your assets into a revocable living trust before your death, most trusts are combined with what’s known as a “Pour-Over” Will. This type of Will serves as a backup to a living trust, so all assets not held by the trust upon your death are transferred, or “poured,” into your trust through the probate process.

A Small—But Important—First Step

As you can see here, having a Will in place only gives you a limited amount of power over the distribution of certain assets, but that doesn’t mean you should go without one! Without a Will, you would have no say in who inherits your assets when you die, and everything you own could even go to the state. But worse than that, your surviving loved ones will be the ones who have to clean up the mess you’ve left behind.

And they will have to handle all of this while grieving your death.

Instead, you should see your Will as an important first step in the estate planning process—one that works best when integrated with a variety of other legal vehicles, such as trusts, powers of attorney, and advance healthcare directives.

If you have yet to create your Will or if you need to get your estate planning started or if you would like us to review your existing estate plan (even one created by another lawyer) to see if you are missing anything, please contact us – we’re happy to help!

In part two, we’ll detail more of the things that your Will does not do and the different estate planning tools that you should have in place to make up for these potential blind spots in your estate plan.

This article is a service of AMO LAW, Personal Family Lawyer® firm. We do not just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That’s why we offer a Legacy Planning Session, during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before and make all the best choices for the people you love. You can begin by calling our office today to schedule a Legacy Planning Session and mention this article to find out how to get this $750 session for just $497. 

The content is sourced from Personal Family Lawyer® for use by Personal Family Lawyer® firms, a source believed to be providing accurate information. This material was created for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as ERISA, tax, legal, or investment advice. If you are seeking legal advice specific to your needs, such advice services must be obtained on your own separate from this educational material.