The Importance of Having a Will - Explore Unique Situations

Growing Family Standing in For a Portrait - Celebrating There Completed Estate Plan

If you want to ensure your family is properly taken care of when you pass, it’s not enough to have life insurance or assets to pass down. You need to understand the importance of having a will.

The Importance of a Will in Different Life Situations

Think of a will as another form of insurance, one designed to ensure that your assets go to the people you intend. This is particularly important if, like many of us, your life has taken some twists and turns. Have you had children outside of your current relationship? You need to have a will. Have you raised children who are yours in every way but biologically, without spending thousands of dollars to adopt them legally? You need to have a will. Do you have a life partner that you never legally married? You need to have a will. Do you have various children who are at
completely different ages? You need to have a will.

Let’s take a few of these situations and explain why.

Unmarried Long-Term Partnerships

Many people have long-term partners that they have decided not to marry legally. They may not want the state involved in their relationship. They may feel a piece of paper like a marriage license isn’t necessary to validate their relationship. If you have built your life with someone that you never legally married, know that the law will generally not entitle that person to anything after you pass.

The law that governs the assets of people who die without a will is known as “intestate law.” Intestate law generally makes provisions for spouses and blood relatives but not life partners. If you die without a will, the person you shared your life with and cared for you in your final days will not be entitled to assets. Unfortunately, nothing brings out the worst in people like death. Unless you have a wilI, if just one blood relative didn’t like your life partner, that blood relative will have a strong ability to keep your assets away from your partner.

Raising Non-Biological or Stepchildren

I know many people who have raised children as their own even though they had no biological connection to the child. Those de facto parents may expect some of their assets to go to those non-biological children. Intestate law generally only makes provisions for biological and adopted children. Your stepchildren, or your de facto children, will not usually be entitled to anything under intestate law. That means that they could be cut entirely out of the distribution of your assets unless you have a will.

Let’s say you have a biological child with someone you never married or had a meaningful relationship with. It happens. Now imagine you also have a life partner with whom you have intertwined your life and finances but have not formally married. Not unheard of. If something unexpected happened and you passed without a will, intestate law will entitle your child to a share, or maybe even all, of your assets, but not your life partner. And if you passed unexpectedly while that child is still a minor, guess who is going to be in control of your assets?

The parent of your child you never had a meaningful relationship with since that is the person with the legal majority (law speak for being over 18 years of age) who can receive your assets on the child’s behalf. For lack of a better way of putting it, do you really want the “baby parent” to have more control of your assets than your life partner? Then you need a will.

Dealing with Age Discrepancies Among Children

Let’s take a less dramatic situation. Say you have children who are far apart in age. Your older children are established, but your younger children are not. Intestate law generally gives your heirs an equal share. However, you may not want your older, established children to receive the same share as your younger children. Say you already paid for your older children’s education and you want your remaining assets to cover the costs of your younger children’s education. If they all get an equal share, there may not be enough to cover the educational costs for the younger kids. To avoid this situation, you need to have a will.

The Importance of a Properly Executed Will

A will is an essential form of insurance. You don’t need to be in a situation like the ones mentioned above. When you die, the people you leave behind are grieving, and few things bring out the worst in people, like death and the process of distributing assets after the fact. No will can prevent your family members from fighting over the assets you leave behind, but a properly drafted and executed will prevents them from ultimately having a say in the matter. Once your will goes through the probate process, a legal process for proving your will is your will, it becomes the only word in the matter.

Consult with Roberto Alejandro to Safeguard Your Legacy

This is why it’s also essential to work with an attorney to prepare your will. Your attorney will work with you to determine what distribution of your assets makes the most sense when you pass, and they will also ensure your will meets all legal requirements and is witnessed in such a way that it will survive probate. This ensures that your will determines the distribution of your assets and not a fight between your grieving family members. If you need a will, contact my office today to make sure your legacy is secured on your terms.

Email Roberto Alejandro at roberto@alejandrolegal.com to schedule a consultation today.