don’t plan on getting sick, hope not to die if I do, but since I’m no longer young and invincible I figured making a will was the prudent thing to do.
has this prompted anyone else to make one, or maybe update an existing one?
I was wondering about this too–has anyone used the services mentioned in below article? I’m assuming one’s critical private information/data would then live in yet another database…
Americans rush to make online wills in the face of the coronavirus pandemic
Nope. The only family I have left is my younger sister and her daughter (my neice).
Life insurance money is already left to them and my bank account only has a couple of thousand dollars in it.
If I die, they’ll have that and they can do what they want with the stuff in my apartment. The only valuable things are my iMac and my 55-inch TV. I doubt they’d fight over that.
We did the whole wills/Power of Attorney/etc. thing a couple years ago.
But I’d like to use this opportunity to suggest that in addition to a will, you should also have a Power of Attorney for Healthcare Decisions and an advance directive. If you’re on a ventilator in a semi-comatose state, you’ll need someone to sign before you can have certain procedures done. Yes, if you are married your spouse can make those decisions, but what if said spouse is on the ventilator next to yours or, gods forbid, has already succumbed to the disease?
A Power of Attorney for financial decisions should be considered, too.
You can do several things that will greatly simplify the distribution of your estate with or without a will. You can externally direct your financial accounts and property to directly go to other people and rather than having to go through probate. This way your estate will be just your normal possessions.
Financial accounts: Setup beneficiaries with the financial company. You can have it all go to a single person or split it up among multiple people. Log in to your account and you can set up the beneficiaries online.
Deeded property: Create Transfer On Death Deed. This document says who gets the real estate property after you die. It gets filed with the county office and you can revoke it at any time. You can get the form for your county from many websites. You’ll need to get it notarized and then file it with the county office. This may be a bit of a problem now with the shutdown trying to get the paperwork done.
One thing about deeded property is that it often is considered “joint tenancy”, which means if one person dies on the deed, the other people on the deed automatically get their share. If you are are on the deed with another person, that other person will automatically get the property if you die. So you don’t need the ToDD if there’s already another person on the deed and you want the property to go to them anyway (like your spouse).
If you take these two steps, it greatly simplifies the distribution of your estate since the major assets will directly be distributed to the heirs you specify. Your estate will be left with just your household goods, car, and stuff like that, which is typically simpler and less contentious to distribute.
Get familiar with the default rules of estate distribution in your state. States differ as to how things are done. Some states may have 100% go to the spouse, while other states may do something like 75% to the spouse and 25% to the children. If you’re okay with the default, then a will isn’t necessary, but a will will make it easier for your heirs in the probate process.
I thought it was necessary to have two people witness you signing the will (difficult when we’re all isolating ourselves), but that page suggests it’s possible to make a will entirely online. So I may do this, even though there’s not much to distribute.
I’ve not made a will, but I’ve put a sticky note on the inside of my front door saying “give the ventilator to someone else”…basically a DNR, with no waste of scarce resources en route! Doubt it’s legally binding in any way, but could prevent forcing a dr to make a decision they’ll question for the rest of their life. I’m not in the high risk group, but many dead folk weren’t. And no one will see it for the foreseeable future unless something goes seriously wrong with my health.
Filmore provided some excellent suggestions.
One that I would make based on prior experience working in a bank… For those of you with insurance, savings, IRA’s, 401k’s, etc where you have named a beneficiary - make sure that beneficiary designation is up to date!
I saw half a dozen cases where the current spouse (widow or widower) got nothing and the former spouse (long divorced) got everything.
Worth checking into!
It’s delayed me from getting one. Before this started I was going to go to a lawyer buddy of mine and get a new will drawn up but this has put it on hold.
I just signed all the papers Friday. Will, POA, Healthcare, all of it. Sent copies to my sister. I wish she was taking the virus as seriously as I am, though. My family had a party Saturday.
No, but I probably will do a proper one after this. All life insurance for me and my spouse is properly divvied out already.
For the current crisis, it’s probably a good idea to make a Living Will and Power of Attorney. Patients are ending up sedated and on a ventilator, and in that state they won’t be able to make their own medical decisions. In case you end up in the hospital, make sure you’ve made clear who you want making decisions for you.