About 68 percent of Americans don't have a will. If you are one of them, you could be leaving a tangled legal hassle to your family.
Wills affect only probate property, which is whatever you individually own.
A house owned by spouses is not probate property. If you and your wife own a home together, when one of you dies, the house passes directly to the other.
If you share ownership of investment property with an uncle or a couple of cousins, you need to have a will in order to designate who gets your share.
One advantage of probate is that it allows a certain amount of time for creditors to come forward. Then there is a cutoff. Any other claims are barred.
Note that there are a number of things a will won't do. Life insurance goes to the person named as the beneficiary. Saying in your will that someone else gets it has no effect. Bank accounts and certificates of deposit can have a pay-on-death designation. A will can't change that POD designation.
A will probably won't let you avoid probate entirely. It's a state court procedure that oversees the administration of your probate property. In most states, the process is not difficult and not very expensive. There are exceptions, such as California and Florida, where probate costs more.
The more complex the family is, including children of various marriages, adopted children and children with special needs, the more important it is to have an estate-planning lawyer draft a will and possibly a trust.
If your real estate is in more than one state, it's wise to create a trust so the estate won't have to be probated in each state. When funded with properly titled assets, a trust can also provide for beneficiaries with special needs and could help minimize any estate taxes.
A trust is not as expensive to set up as people think it is. It can cost from just $400 to $4,000, depending on how complicated the property issues are.
