Estate Attorney
When creating a will, many people do not know where to start – especially if they decide to write their will themselves without the help of an estate lawyer. Writing a will can be simple by following a few easy steps. Here are 7 steps to creating a will.
- Pick your beneficiaries
The first thing you want to do is decide who is going to be a beneficiary of your will. Will you be leaving your things to only your children or are there other family members you wish to include? It’s a good idea to write out who you want to be considered as beneficiaries before you start writing your will to make sure you don’t forget anyone.
- Pick your children’s guardians
If you are leaving behind any children under the age of 18 years old, you will need to select a guardian (or two) for your children. These are the people you trust to raise your kids the way you would want them to be raised. This is a very important decision and it must be included in your will unless you want the state to decide who will be the guardians of your children.
- Pick an executor
The executor of your will is someone you trust to make sure your wishes are taken care of how you would like. This is extremely important because you are giving this person the legal authority to execute the items you’ve listed in your will.
- Be specific about who gets what items
If you are planning on leaving items to certain people, make sure you are specific. You don’t want there to be any arguments or tensions in your family because you were not clear in your will. This is the part of your will where you leave specific items to people. Do you want to leave your collector’s items to your cousin Dan? Or maybe you want to leave your jewelry to your granddaughters. This is the place to write that out.
- Gather witnesses
In order for your will to be a legal document, you will need two witnesses. These are people who are not beneficiaries in your will but can sign a sworn affidavit saying they witnessed you sign your will.
- Put your will in a safe space
This may seem obvious, but you want to keep your will somewhere safe and protected like a safe or a fireproof box. And make sure you let whoever you designate as your executor know where you’ve kept your will so they can get to it if and when they need it.
- Keep your will updated
It’s important to keep your will up to date. A good rule of thumb is to update your will anytime you have a major life change. Did you have another child? Did you get married? Did you get divorced? Keeping an updated will ensures that in the event of an unexpected event, your family will still be taken care of in the way you wanted.