Dh and I never have created wills. I know! I know! Today, I called his EAP to set up a free 30-minute consultation and to work with someone to draft ours. The woman set up the consultation call but also pointed me to online documents to help formulate questions. One of those documents is an online will. It walks you through all the questions, and I’m actually really comfortable with how it went.
We don’t have a complicated estate at all with total assets at probably less than $1 million. Our two sons are OOS and get along well and have been told repeatedly about our wishes. Is there any reason why we need to spend money hiring a lawyer because this document won’t hold up in court? The bottom line is we would not expect any challenge to what’s in the will. Anyone with experience? Any ideas with questions to ask during the consult?
You would need to set up a trust which is considerably more complicated. I think wills only go up to 150K in total assets. I’m no lawyer but I think this is an accurate statement. A trust through an EAP sponsored lawyer runs around $700 (we are in the Bay Area which is expensive territory) but if it’s complicated will go well higher than that.
In order to fill out the document, I had to answer a series of questions, including what state I live in, so I know it’s specific to my state. One of those was “The total value of my estate (all property and assets) is less than the $5 million federal estate tax limit.” That makes me think that it’s saying this document is sufficient for our level of assets, but I’ll ask in the consultation tomorrow.
I’m a lawyer (not a tax/estate lawyer) and I would strongly recommend NOT doing this. Get a lawyer who can assess your individual situation and help you with the living will as well.
There is no limit to a will. You don’t HAVE to set up a trust, and some of your assets may pass outside of probate anyway (life insurance, 401k policies, IRA, bank accounts) if you have them set that way. State law does a pretty good job of giving away your assets, first to a surviving spouse and then to children if you don’t have a will. I there is no ex spouse and no step children, no illegitimate children, etc. it is usually pretty straight forward.
An attorney may help you think of problems that could arise with your situation. A financial planner may have ideas about how to rearrange things. If you feel comfortable with your finances and your kids, I think the online Will packages are fine.
I went partly the online Will route. My assets are not complicated and as a single parent there is no spouse to consider. So basically, I have all financials (IRAs, investments, checking, etc) set as Transfer at Death (TOD beneficiaries). These TOD’s automatically bypass probate. The only items leftover are a paid off house and car. These items are handled by the online Will. Arrangement already made for cremation and confirmed with the kids.
@ProfessorPlum168, the $150K limit appears to be for using simplified probate procedures in California. That is separate from whether the deceased individual used a will or a trust.
You and your husband each need an individual will. While a married couple pays taxes together, when it comes to the end of the road, each spouse is on her or his own.
We have had complicated wills & trusts and online wills in our family. For my parents I set up a quick Legal Zoom trust before Dad died, wills, too. No problems with having it accepted by banks etc. However, we had lots of complicated ones to read and are quite familiar with financial and estate planning, so that may be an advantage in using the simple one.
The biggest problem with a simple will/trust is the issue you never thought to address, the attorney has the value of experience and knowing the questions to ask beyond boiler plate.
Weird. When I worked for a big corporation I went down to legal and asked two attorneys about recommending someone to do a will. Both of them said they did theirs online. So that’s what I did. This was about 10 years ago.
Have laws changed so much that online options aren’t recommended?
I didn’t do our wills even though I’m a a lawyer. I wanted the right tax advice and it’s a specialty. Of course, we are living in the age of Dr. Google…
As long as you are treating your kids equally, and there are no other expectations, you’ll probably be fine. If your will gives everything to him and his gives everything to you, it’s pretty simple. As as for the kids, the closer you are to “sell everything and divide the cash equally” between the kids the less you have to worry about. That way no “fights” will occur.
Now the real issue is what if one of you goes tomorrow and the other remarries. Then you have the evil step parent to contend with.
Don’t let a lawyer charge you an arm and a leg. See what they say. Should be pretty simple. Good luck.
yourmomma, it never even crossed my mind that a future wife could get my money instead of my kids. Hmmmm … I bet it never crossed his mind that I could remarry either. LOL That does give me something to think about. What do people do? We have our retirement set up where he got the larger pension, and I have the large 401K. I don’t want to worry about something that might never happen and leave the money to my kids iinstead of dh if my dh will need it to live.
My estate lawyer thought of items that I didn’t consider, e.g. putting my house and bank account in mynTrust. Also, the concept of future grandchildren. She also drew up other papers, such POA and healthcare POA and living will.
I highly suggest researching on why a trust is better than a will. There are lots of situations that a will will not cover. I speak from personal experience. Years ago my wife and I made up a simple will that in retrospect was poorly written. At the time we didn’t have a kid and the house that she had bought was with her mom and dad. We never updated the will. We subsequently bought another property and stupidly put it in her name only for interest rate reduction purposes. Anyhow she passed away 3.5 years ago. The will was pretty useless, it didn’t cover anything related to probate. As of today, the 2 houses that I mentioned are still in probate. It will probably cost close to $40K in lawyer fees to eventually close on the probate.
In California the state law has poor laws on passing down assets. We all thought that things would go to me automatically. Wrong. Pretty much everything goes to probate that does not show explicit survivor ownership.
@“Youdon’tsay” one option is to put everything into a trust, to benefit your husband while he is still living, and make your kids the remainder beneficiaries. Another option with real estate is to deed the house to your children, and grant your husband life tenancy.
The real issue with the size of your estate isn’t likely to be federal estate taxes, but whether you live in a state the has an estate tax, and the limits for it. MA, for example taxes all estates $1 Million and over - my parents live in a community where the houses alone are over that threshold. It also makes sense to speak to a financial planner, if you suspect either of you is likely to end up in a nursing home, because you’ll want to protect your assets. I don’t mind paying for my parents’ nursing care with their money, but if Medicare is covering everybody else, it might be nice not completely drain the inheritance.