Preparing your will doesn’t have to be complicated or overwhelming. Yes, it takes time and effort, but this guide will help make it easier.
Even though it’s never pleasant to consider the inevitable, taking time to care for the preparation of your will is very important.
It can be a challenge to ponder such a grim prospect, but there are some important things to consider.
Here are five things every person should think about when preparing their will:
1. Define and Allocate Assets
Before you begin writing your will, you need to know just how much you are leaving behind. It’s important that you identify and specify every asset you own, just to be sure.
This does not just include assets of monetary value but also sentimental value. You don’t want to leave anything behind that has not been allocated to a specific individual or organization.
Another important thing to do is to make sure your assets cover any outstanding debts and to include in your will which assets should be sold and used to pay off your debts.
Don’t forget to specify any charitable donations you wish to make in your passing, as well.
While most of your personal belongings should be included in your will, any belongings that you shared joint ownership of with your spouse or other individual are not included in your will.
These items will be left to the individual who shared the items with you. For example, if you and your spouse share a mortgage on your home, the house will go to them.
Any items that had already been legally given beneficiary designations are also not included in the will. An example of this would be life insurance, which always has a beneficiary listed in the policy.
To learn about more examples of beneficiary designation, read this article.
2. Separate Guardians and Trustees
If you are a parent, it’s crucial to determine what will happen to your children in the event of your death.
When writing out your will, you may be tempted to choose one individual to care for every aspect of your child’s or children’s needs. However, this may not be in the best interest of your child.
It is important to choose your children’s guardian(s) wisely. This should obviously be someone you trust and respect very much.
No matter how much you trust this person, it is not wise to make them the trustee of your children’s monetary assets. This would put them in a position of total power.
To ensure that your children are cared for out of love and not out of greed, allow a different person to be in charge of the money you leave your children.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t instruct the trustee of your children’s monetary asset to provide a monthly stipend to the guardian to help care for your children, but they should not have total control of the money.
This system of checks and balances prevents anyone from taking advantage of the situation.
3. Choose an Executor
In your will, you should include the name of the person who you dub the executor of your will. This is the person responsible for ensuring that your will is followed.
You may be tempted to choose the person closest to you. However, it is imperative that this person not be too emotionally connected to you. This may cloud their judgment if they disagree with some of your wishes.
This person should also be someone you trust and believe holds the respect of those in your will.
Your executor will have the ability to carry out your will and should be strong enough to keep a level head in the face of the emotions that come from experiencing your death.
It is helpful to be organized and communicate with your executor beforehand to smooth out any inconsistencies or questions they may have about your will.
4. Include Funeral Instructions
Often, the area in which family members have the hardest time agreeing on is the funeral arrangements. You can make it much easier on them by stating your funeral wishes clearly in your will.
Of course, this is something you should explain to your executor and have them carry out. However, it may help for you to make your funeral wishes known to your loved ones.
This can help to make the process go smoother and ease some of the sting if you believe that they could potentially disagree with your decisions.
If you are a little trepidatious about this conversation, read the tips listed in this article.
5. Review and Adjust
When your will is complete, you may feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. But as time goes on, your thoughts may change.
For this reason, you need to review and adjust your will after a period of 5–10 years and keep reviewing it periodically.
You will also want to reconsider your will after any big life changes occur. For example, if you get married, no doubt you will want to include your new spouse in your will.
If you have a new baby, this child will become the recipient of some of your assets.
There may be someone included in your will that dies. In that event, you need to adjust your will to remove this person and allocate what you were leaving to this individual to someone else.
When you retire, you may also need to make a few changes to your will, depending on the specifications of your retirement.
Conclusion
As you can see, there’s much more to writing your will than just writing a list of who your belongings are going to.
It is important that you write your will before it’s too late and include all the things mentioned above.
Following these tips can help to protect your loved ones from having to make any decisions. It will prevent them from squabbling amongst themselves over your belongings, too!
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Adam Marshall is a freelance writer who specializes in all things apartment organization, real estate, and college advice. He currently works with NorthStar Georgetown to help them with their online marketing.
