Has anyone created a will own their own, without a lawyer?

In My Humble Opinion
42

One should consider it… and largely discard it.

Things like jewelry and household items, sure - if you like.

Stocks, property and so on… nope, nope, nope.

  1. you’re giving up control of your most valuable assets;
  2. the recipient will inherit your basis in those, which has nasty tax implications when they sell them. If you bought your house for 100,000 dollars, and it’s now worth 400,000, and it increases in value to 600,000 by the time Junior sells it, he’s paying taxes on 500,000 of capital gains. If he inherits it, he’s only paying taxes on a gain of 200,000 (the value now, assuming you croak today).

HOWEVER: if you set up a revocable living trust and transfer all those assets into it, that does simplify what happens to them when you die - it’s all spelled out there. I would guess these are slightly less likely to be challenged in court, though I might be mistaken.

And of course if you think you might need a nursing home at some point, transferring the house to the kids could work out - as long as you manage to outlast the lookback period before Medicaid kicks in.

I wouldn’t try to do a do-it-yourself trust, however.

43

I don’t think so.

I think ours kept a copy of it for his records. but it is by no means the copy that we’d expect anyone to look for.

We’ve got the primary one in our safe deposit box (and a scanned copy at home).

44

But I am still not sure. Legal zoom or Quicken or a lawyer?

What I probably need are opinions from people who actually had to deal with death’s aftermath with an online will.

45

Can you give a summary of your situation, like married, kids, what kind of assets you have, etc? How complicated will your estate be to distribute? Is it everything to one person, or lots of things to lots of people with lots of stipulations?

46

It’s pretty simple. I want to make sure that my girlfriend/fiance inherits my assets in case anything happens to me. I also want her to have power of attorney. (We do plan on getting married, but can’t do so yet because of complicated financial and health-insurtance reasons, probably for another year at least.)

My assets are not too complicated and not a fortune, but would be enough to at least be able to allow her to continue to Iive where we are now in the event of my death, in my co-op apartment. I also own some modest land in the country.

I worry about a worst-case scenario of my sibling inheriting it and then my GF would be forced to leave, and left with nothing. These things happen. It’s really for peace-of-mind for me.

47

If you just want to make sure your fiance will be okay, perhaps consider getting a term life insurance policy instead of worrying about the will. When you’re married, it will simplify things since she would be the natural beneficiary anyway. But until then, you could get a term life insurance policy so she would get a cash benefit if anything happened to you.

In case you’re not aware, a term life insurance policy is a policy that is only good for a short time (typically 1 year or a little longer). If you die during the term, your beneficiary gets the money, but otherwise the policy expires at the end of the term. Since the term is so short, these kinds of policies can be relatively cheap.

Do you own your apartment? If so, there may be a way to create a transfer-on-death deed. The same with the land. Depending on where your financial assets are, you can specify your fiance as the beneficiary. So you may be able to structure a lot of things so that a will wouldn’t be needed for your major assets.

Do you think your sister or other heirs would contest anything? That’s where the problems will really come about. If someone wants to fight over your estate, having a self-made will could be a problem.

48

The co-op ownership is a complicating factor that points toward having a local lawyer prepare a will for you. The co-op agreement might have its own provisions about what happens to the ownership interest and the right of residency if a shareholder dies. Your estate planning should take that factor into account, and it is almost surely too uniquely tied to the specific facts of your personal situation for anyone here to give you reliable advice.

Disclaimer: I am not your lawyer, we have no attorney-client relationship, and this is just anonymous chat.

49

Thank you all, this is great advice.

I do own the co-op outright. It’s true this might complicate things. Maybe a lawyer would be best.

The life insurance idea is a good one. I didn’t even think of that before.

I don’t necessarily think my sister would contest things — but who knows? People change when there’s money to be grabbed. I’ve been through it several times with other family situations.

50

So, there’s someone who you’re afraid might contest the will, the possible contestor is a close relative, and you have no legal relationship with the person who you want to inherit. That sounds to me like a situation where I’d really want a lawyer.