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Estate Planning - The importance of having a willWriting a will is not something most people want to think about - after all, it means thinking about their own death. Something like 70% of all parents with children do not have wills. But doing estate planning, including have a will, is critical if you want to preserves your assets and have them left behind to the heirs of YOUR choosing. If you die without a will, it is called being "intestate" - which means simply, dying without a will. If you are intestate, your estate is instead handled by a probate court, which can either assign an executor to your case or accept one submitted by your lawyer through the court proceedings. Most people don't know it, but there are specific laws that exist at the local, state, and federal level that determine how your estate will be split up amongst your heirs if there is no will in place. If you are married, your spouse automatically gets a specific % of everything. If you have kids, the children are automatically entitled to equal stakes of a certain percentage. Children will be put in the custody of whom the court thinks is best. And all this happens without you having any input.. Starting to see why you might want to have a will in place? Keep reading!
Writing a Will - Why It's ImportantMost married couples will have two, almost identical wills. Normally, if one spouse dies they leave their estate to the other spouse (this avoids taxation at this level). Some people have a joint will, but if one spouse dies that will cannot be changed and stays in place until the second spouse dies, then its wishes are spelled out and executed. Unlike wills you see in a movie, written by a dying person, real, valid wills need to be signed in the presence of witnesses, as required by each individual state (normally 2 or 3 witnesses, none of whom should be beneficiaries of the will). Your will must be in written form and it must be signed with the intention of creating a will. Once your will is completed, you will likely want to review it and update it every few years. For this reason, it is usually not a good idea to let many copies be distributed to third parties, as it can be difficult to prove what the final will is, and whether changes made were done legally.
Estate Planning Software - Will Writing SoftwareThere are a number of programs you can use to help craft your will. To be honest, most wills are pretty much the same - they spell out who gets custody of any minor children, and how assets are distributed -- real estate, retirement accounts, bank accounts, personal property, etc. Probably 90% of the population have wills that fit into this cookie cutter pattern - just change the names, change the amounts, edit a few paragraphs, and the will has been customized for the new person. This is why lawyers love to help you with estate planning and will writing. It sounds scary and complicated, so they will convince you to spend a few thousand dollars for their services, when behind the scenes they have their legal assistant fire up the word processor, change the names on the standard will forms, enter any special information specific to your case, print it out, and present you with a huge bill for 1 hour of a secretary's time and almost none of their own "valuable" time. Of course, providing for your heirs is no laughing matter, so you need to invest some time and energy and research into what your legal options are (trusts, etc.) and decide if your case really is complicated enough to enlist the services of an expensive attorney. Another option is to use some will writing software to create a draft, then offer it to an attorney for review and comments, limiting them to 1 hour of charges of something. Ultimately the choice is yours.One online program for helping you write your will is called LegacyWriter.com. They can prepare legally valid wills for all states except Louisiana. The price is $20 for a will, and $35 for a complete estate planning package, including the Power of Attorney, Medical Power of Attorney, and Living Will forms. Creating your will online with them is easy. You put in your basic information - name, spouses, children, trusts you want established for minor children, alternate heirs in case someone predeceases you, naming an executor, whether you want to be buried or cremated, etc. The whole process does not take long, but you can save your work along the way by creating a free account until you are finished. As you work through the forms, you may indeed come across some concepts and terms that you want to research more -- since your work is saved, you can come back and complete it any time, then pay for it and print it when complete. Their wills are basic but complete - again it is a big savings to do a preliminary one like this to present to an attorney for review rather than paying a lawyer to write you a will from scratch. Another online will making site is BuildAWill.com. For $20, you can create your own will, with plenty of customizable options like family members, executors, beneficiaries, specific gifts, survivorship, guardianship, trustees, fiduciary powers, and more. They explain a lot of the steps and legal information in building a will, rather than just focussing on a fill in the blanks approach. With more than 50,000 wills created this year, they seem to have a lot of happy customers, again proving the point that lawyers add very little value to filling in pretty much standardized forms (but of course, they are still happy to charge you an arm and a leg, those nice lawyers!). Quicken Willmaker Plus 2007 sells for about $40 or $50, and just like Quicken Accounting or Tax software, it walks you through the steps of creating a will, allowing you to enter your custom information. From their website: "America's No. 1 estate planning software helps you create a will, living trust, living will -- and much more! Help protect your family and your assets, and save on legal fees! Quicken WillMaker Plus 2007 provides the legal forms you need. So comprehensive, the software assembles your forms from among 40,000 document possibilities -- but so easy to use, you'll have them finished in minutes." It also provides Health Care Power of Attorney, Living Trust, and Living Will documents. You can buy it at Amazon.com for $45, or from Nolo.com for a $39 downloadable file or $49 for the CD version in the mail.
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