Making a No-Frills Will
Forget the fancy trusts you may have heard about. A simple will may be all you need.
We've all been told that if we do nothing else to take care of our legal affairs, we should write a will. That's pretty good advice. If you don't make a will before your death, state law will determine who gets your property (and it may well not be whom you would have chosen), and a judge may decide who will raise your children. In your will, you can make these decisions yourself.
If all you need is a basic will, you can confidently use a good self-help book or software to make a legally binding will that:
- leaves your property to the people and organizations you choose
- names a guardian to care for your minor children if you can't
- names someone to manage property you leave to minor children (yours or someone else's), and
- names your executor, the person with authority to make sure that the terms of your will are carried out.
When a Basic Will Is Enough
By and large, if you are under age 50 and don't expect to leave assets valuable enough to be subject to estate taxes, you can probably get by with only a basic will. But as you grow older and acquire more property, you may want to engage in more sophisticated planning -- we go into these details below.
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Take a common situation where a husband and wife want to leave their property to each other or, if they die together, to their children in equal shares. They also want to name a personal guardian for their children. They can safely make simple wills themselves without hiring a costly expert. (See Do I Need a Lawyer to Make My Will?)
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