“I, (my name), being of sound mind, leave all my worldly possessions to my husband, (his name).”
We don’t have wills, and Wife is back in the CCU with pneumonia. I need to solidify things, so is that enough if she were to sign it when she is of sound mind? With a witness, I assume.
Some states do not allow holographic wills - my dad’s although handwritten (by him) and witnessed, still needed to go through probate. (NJ)
Name an executor, too.
Need two witnesses who are NOT beneficiaries. It’s all for you and you are the sole beneficiary, and you get her to sign in private. Can you see how in some crime novel or soap opera that would be considered sketchy?
If you have children, you must allow for them. Typically, law in states (and Canada) is absent will, spouse gets half plus family dwelling, children split half. Failure to mention children may invalidate will.
See a lawyer. Worth the $200 or whatever, to possible save court costs later. IANAL, for the USA there are of course 50 different answers.
Best advice with wills is, get a lawyer. There are all kinds of things that could go wrong with an amateur job.
Sorry to hear about your wife.
What state?
Yes, lawyer. Now. The other major benefit is that a lawyer can testify that the person appeared lucid, appeared to be expressing their own wishes without undue influence. Who knows, the judge might think you are overriding her deep wish to leave it all to a home for abandoned cats.
Plus, some jurisdictions, unless there is a will and it lists an executor, the government has a default public executor to deal with everything, for a decent percentage of the take and at the speed of bureaucracy.
I’ll also throw in the cautionary tale of my step-mother. My father ended up in the hospital because my step-mother did not understand he needed help, he lay there until someone else heard him. So, she ended up in the Alzheimer ward at the same time. Now it was too late for her to sign a power of attorney - she was already incompetent. So when they needed the cash, there was a whole rigamarole/rigmarole to go through to get state approval for a plan to sell the house, since it was half hers. The lawyer cost and time it would take made it sad but convenient that she died within two years. OTOH, that procedure has the valid purpose of preventing an avaricious relative from ripping off a dying senior… it’s a balance. Plus note that my nephew and I had to decide on short notice about the degree of do-not-resuscitate order for my father when he went in for an operation.
Moral of the story, get all the preparations done. Will, living will, powers of attorney, etc. They can be conditional, but that’s the sort of stuff that can’t be done retroactively.
There are notaries who regularly come to hospitals to notarize signatures.* I imagine there are also lawyers near hospitals who are used to people setting up wills and living wills quickly. It may take some calling or running around, but it shouldn’t be too hard to set up.
You might want to ask hospital staff if they know a lawyer who’s willing to come to the hospital without a huge roaming charge.
Any will is valid if it’s clear in what it expresses as the wishes of the deceased, and if it’s clear that what’s in the will actually is what the deceased wished. But those are both very big ifs, and there are all sorts of nuances you might overlook as a non-expert. Which is why we have the experts.
If everything is as you describe, then this should be a very simple job for an estate lawyer, and hence the lawyer probably won’t have to charge you much. But simple for the pro who knows what they’re doing is not the same thing as simple for you.
Sorry to hear about your wife … does your state allow survivorship … you may automatically inherit everything …
Are there hospital staff you can talk to on this matter? They are more likely than anyone else to have encountered this situation before and would know who is readily available to do what needs to be done.
The hospital will have a patient advocate person who’s expert at what you ought to do in your state. They can’t do it for you, but they know who can and who to call for quick service. The nurses at the nurse station down the hall from your wife have that extension memorized. Talk to them ASAP.
Sorry to hear about your unfolding disaster. Here’s hoping it resolves OK.
Moderator Action
Since this involves legal issues, let’s move it to IMHO (from GQ).
My Brother, Andy died during December 2015.
We will not finalize his Estate until February of this year.
Get a Lawyer.
Make a Will.
This is not correct. The states have different formal requirements for wills, but they all require something beyond these two points. For example, I am not aware of any state where a video recording of the deceased stating how he wants to bequeath his stuff is a sufficient will, even though it would satisfy these two points.
This. Talk to the patient advocate. Alternatively, call the State Bar and ask if they have a referral system for lawyers who handle this in your area.
And I too am sorry you’re in a crisis like this. Best wishes for you and the missus.
Which jurisdictions have this arrangement? I’m not familiar with it - to the best of my knowledge, in Canadian jurisdictions, if an adult dies without a will or without an executor, the heirs apply to the court to appoint an administrator, who fulfills the same role as an executor but is a private party, not a government official. Can be an heir, a family member or a professional, such as a lawyer.
The only role for a public trustee that I can think of is if the money is left directly to a minor or a mental incompetent, and the will does not appoint a trustee specifically for that person.
Wisconsin has a law that spouses can leave each other their property without probate, simplifying things. This still requires signing papers. Maybe other places have similar laws.
Good advice generally, but you do not have to leave your kids anything. My wife and I made wills a year ago, making each other sole beneficiaries and then the kids to be divided evenly. It came to over two pages of legalize.
Including a paragraph explaining that although we were, at the time of the marriage, residents of NY and CN, resp., and married in NJ, I was domiciled in PA, even though I never resided there again and so the laws of PA defined our marital regime.
You don’t have to leave the kids anything, but some argue that it is good practice to mention their existence and names, so there can be no argument that the fact that you had kids just slipped your mind when you left your worldly goods elsewhere.
My best advice… You’re still in Illinois? If you want to leave everything to each other, unless there are other heirs, you don’t need a lawyer at all. The surviving spouse inherits it all.
There are plenty of reasons to have a will, and the more property involved in the estate, the more reasons there are. Mostly to do with tax avoidance and special bequests to people or institutions like charities that would not be in the normal chain of inheritance.
But you’d still need a lawyer after her death to handle setting up the estate, publishing legal notices, etc.
Is it worth the effort of trying to get a will like this done:
Isn’t that the default when a spouse dies? If there is no will, won’t everything go to the spouse anyway? I’m trying to understand if it’s worth the effort of trying to do this now vs what it would take to deal with probate should the theoretical happen.
(((wishing for the best)))