Now that J is home, we need to make a will. We don't have a ton of assets....some expensive home items + jewelry plus our 401ks. Soon we will have a 529 for jae. I would like to stipulate leaving money to his guardians (my sister and her husband) to assist with his care. It seems so simple....what am I missing?
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The bill from the attorney?
In all seriousness, the substance of wills seems simple, but their execution is highly technical and varies from state to state. A will that's not executed properly is basically a wish list and not a legal document, so i'd definitely find an attorney who specializes in trusts and estates.
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@Madison43: I was planning on going through legal zoom...,is that bad? LoL. We were also told we needed a lawyer for our adoption stuff and we did it all ourselves
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@hotchildinthecity: I wouldn't, but I'm a lawyer, so I guess take my opinion that lawyers are necessary with a grain of salt!! We haven't done ours yet - which is terrible - but I won't even do it myself because it's not my area of expertise.
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@hotchildinthecity: End of life care? So how you want your loved ones to handle your care if you're unable to breathe on your own or have no brain function. And who you want to make medical decisions on your behalf if something happened to both you and DH and you've survived but he hasn't.
Very morbid things to think about, but we need to do this as well and I've been thinking about it!
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because my brother is an estate lawyer and I value the work that he does I did a quick google search on legalzoom vs an estate lawyer.
Interestingly enough, LegalZoom has an article listed that indicates circumstances where it's important to have an attorney write a will. One of those is when you have adopted children.
https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/when-is-an-attorney-crucial-to-your-estate-planning
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@hotchildinthecity: 401k and 529s have named beneficiaries and would be handled outside of your will. Just make sure you name a back up custodian for the 529 fund. The best option for a child if both parents die is for your will to name a guardian and then also create a testamentary trust for your child(ren)'s benefit. If you trust the financial management skills of the guardians, you can also name them as trustees of the trust, and then set an age at which the trust assets are turned over to the child.
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I'm with @Madison43: there are lots of things about wills when a minor child is involved that would make me hesitant to try it on my own. A trusts & estates attorney will bring up potential issues you may never have thought of on your own (for instance, do you want J to have access to all assets when he attains majority or do you want to set up a trust to delay that until he's older? Do you want the same people to be guardians of his person and guardians of his assets -- sometimes people prefer to split those roles. Are his guardians also going to be the executors of the will? Etc etc). Also, like Madison43 said, the actual execution of wills has to be done just so and the rules are different state-to-state. Personally, I wouldn't risk not doing it quite right and having problems come to light when I'm not there to address them.
End-of-life issues like @2PeasinaPod: mentioned are usually dealt with in a separate document (healthcare proxy and/or living will) and you may consider whether you'd need some form of a power of attorney, as well -- highly dependent on your personal situation.
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We're having ours set up as a trust for about $1300.
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@2PeasinaPod: good one! I've been meaning to do something about that ever since that terry schiavo thing.
@marym: hmmmm the way that article is worded is....interesting. He is my child under the law, so I will definitely have to check on that.
@truthbombs: oh yes, correct, my beneficiary is currently my husband for my 401k and vice versa.
@madison43: I may be looking for a lawyer then
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How you would like to be cremated/buried etc. not sure what can be included in wills where you are but I always forget that one.
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@hotchildinthecity: we hired an attorney for peace of mind!
He set up a trust, and then our financial planner named our trust as the beneficiary in all our plans (IRA, life insurance). I previously named my husband as my beneficiary.
We also named an executor of estate, guardianship, and end of life care.
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@2PeasinaPod: Usually, your medical wishes (directing end-of-life care decision, etc) are not included in a will. That would be in an advanced directive - a living will and/or a medical power of attorney. That doesn't require an attorney to write up or execute, and in many states it doesn't even need to be notarized (in PA, for example).
I would definitely recommend hiring an attorney. I have free legal aid through work, and we went through them to do our wills. I'm so glad we had that, because it was pretty complicated, and we are married with 1 biological child.
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Thanks all! Seems we will be hiring a lawyer!
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@Mrs. Jump Rope: just FYI even with a trust there are usually advantages to keeping your spouse as the beneficiary of an IRA because they can do a spousal rollover and the account will have no required minimum distributions until the surviving spouse reaches age 70 1/2. The trust would have to open a beneficiary IRA that will have mandatory distributions based on the life expectancy of the youngest trust beneficiary.
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@hotchildinthecity: Check with your HR benefits administrator, you might be able to get legal benefits much like you get health benefits. We pay about $12 a month and the services provided include wills, POAs, health care proxies, etc.
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@looch: why did you not share this with me before I spent an absurd amount of money on estate planning docs?
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@Truth Bombs: ha!
It's seriously a great benefit, most people don't even know it's offered and if they do know, they don't read up on it to learn what it covers. We also get services if we have a case of identity theft! It's seriously amazing.
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@looch: the more you know.
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@Truth Bombs: it's set up so he is named first, and the trust is named second! So in the event of my death and his survival, he is beneficiary. In the event of both our death, the trust is named. Yay!
It was previously named him first, our oldest child second, but our planner suggested the trust so we could set an age limit & name someone to manage the funds. That way, our hypothetical 10 year old wouldn't inherit a butt load of money.
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@Mrs. Jump Rope: perfect! High five to your financial advisor.
In all seriousness, the substance of wills seems simple, but their execution is highly technical and varies from state to state. A will that's not executed properly is basically a wish list and not a legal document, so i'd definitely find an attorney who specializes in trusts and estates.
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