5 Answers

• Reputation: 72 Q&A: 0 0 3 16 4 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 Rachel Bury

  4 0 My mother passed away suddenly. I was her only child & she had a partner, but they were not married. She did not have a will (even though she bugged my father constantly about having one). It made grieving & the whole finical experience miserable. I had to figure out what accounts she had, find out how to transfer them, transfer them to my name & it felt like a never ending reminder that she was dead. And it didn't stop after a few months. This took YEARS. I don't think she wanted to put me through that, and I learned a lot, but if you want your kids to be able to move on with their lives, leave a will. I also went through the nightmare of having to deal with her partner who was a controlling doctor. He made the situation a million times worse by adding his name as her spouse to the death certificate (it takes 9 months to get a new one) which I had to change. The problem is less the laws that protect the fact that her assets were rightfully mine, but other people, the grieving & the overall confusion involved if you have many different finical accounts. Rachel Bury answered in Other Family & Kids about 1 year ago | Report 1 comment by K… 1 0 My father died and *did* leave a will and it was miserable. A lot of it was my poor mother having to go from bank to bank and calling different places to figure out exactly where everything was and to get everything in her name. If my dad hadn't left a will it would've been 100x's worse. Leave a will and your heirs will thank you. K commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 73 Q&A: 0 0 3 13 0 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 Lara

  1 0 Short answer: yes. If you're not a single person living in a cardboard box with no dependents, I would strongly suggest getting your papers in order. I say papers because in addition to a will, a medical and financial power of attorney are super helpful. Obviously, no one likes to think about the worst-case scenario, but think of it as akin to health insurance...you don't ever want to imagine getting hit by a bus, but it'd sure be nice to be covered if you did. In medical social work, I've seen those worst case scenarios of what happens if you don't have your wishes on paper beforehand and it's ugly for everyone involved. Luckily, preparing this stuff doesn't have to be as expensive or drawn out as you might think. If things are pretty simple for you, (traditional marriage, kids all from same marriage, one house, etc), you may be able to use a DIY kit like NOLO's Wills, Trusts, and Estates (http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/wills-trusts-estates/). For $42, you get the TurboTax of wills, power of attorney, etc, and you can do it all in just a few hours, print, sign, and notarize. If things are more complicated, call your local bar association and ask about estate attorneys who do flat-rate packages for this stuff. Lara answered in Other Family & Kids about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 64 Q&A: 2 0 0 25 1 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 NealH

  1 0 While the responses below address the advantages to having a will with respect to finances, inheritance, etc., I think for parents with minor children, probably the most important reason to have a will is address custody of the children. If you are a single parent, or even if you are not, there is always the possibility that your children could suddenly be left parentless. Establishing in advance who would retain custody following such an unfortunate circumstance could be of critical importance in making an already difficult transition as smooth as it could be. Without a will, state probate law could place your children with relatives who you would rather not place them with, or such relatives may not really be able or willing to accept the custody of the children. Or maybe you would really prefer that someone other than a relative would take custody. In this case, a will would be an absolute necessity. In addition, you might also want to vest custodial control over finances to someone different than the person who has physical custody. These are not really pleasant things to think about, but it really is in your kids' best interests for you to think about them and to write down exactly what you want to happen should the worst case scenario occur. NealH answered in Other Family & Kids about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 1226 Q&A: 24 0 21 316 15 5 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 rickibot

  0 0 That depends. Technically, state probate law provides for distribution of an estate when you die intestate (i.e. without any sort of enforceable will or directive). Check out RCW 11 for more details. A word of warning, though probate law uses words like "slayer", it tends to be dry reading. If you are cool with how the state will divide your property by default, then you probably don't need to worry about it (but check with an attorney!) The reason a lot of people have wills is because life is complex, and many people have spouses and ex-spouses, biological children and step children, living parents, domestic partners registered and non-registered, etc. Oh, and many people also despise family or ex-family that would otherwise inherit part of the estate if not for a will. If your situation is complicated, or if you think that a family member whom you'd like to inherit part of your estate might be screwed in the state's default process, then chat with an attorney and get a will drawn up. Apart from that, you can make sure that all of your "designated beneficiary" ducks are in a row when it comes to your 401k, HSA, life insurance, etc. Not having a designated beneficiary for those accounts can be a real procedural bitch for the heirs and assignees. rickibot answered in Other Family & Kids about 1 year ago | Report 3 comments by Tom Sackett, rickibot, and capicola… 0 0 I thought that, if someone dies without a will, the state ends up charging a large number of fees or taxes that would not otherwise apply to the estate. Is this true? Tom Sackett commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 Not necessarily. (FYI, I'm not an estate planner or a probate attorney, so if there's one on here, it would be rad if they chimed in.) Anyway, the filing threshold for the estate tax in Washington is $2M, so there's not a requirement to file a state tax return for estates worth less than that. Income taxes and the like are more difficult to avoid, will or no will. A good estate planner may be able to help reduce the tax hit to the beneficiaries, but sometimes that only works in specialized circumstances (i.e. establishing a charitable trust vs. a charitable remainder trust). I think the question-asker might be more concerned about establishing guardianship over his children should they still be minors at the event of his death. As Rachel so rightly points out below, it can be the people involved who can be much more problematic than the tax code. rickibot commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 I'm no Tea Partier, but this sounds like one instance where you'd do well to spend a little money and make your intentions known rather than to just trust the state and hope for the best. capicola commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 0 Q&A: 0 0 0 1 1 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0

  0 0 Is there a specific reason why you're thinking about NOT making a will? have you had a bad experience or something? my husband and I made a will, we don't have a lot of stuff but we have 1 child so it seemed like the responsible thing to do. however we never did get it notarized.... Erica answered in Other Family & Kids about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend: