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Inventory of assets
One of the first things to do in preparing to make a will is to take an inventory of your assets. Remember your assets are not only house and land and money in the bank. The ring you received from your father, chain from your mother or bracelet from your grandmother are valuables that you may want to leave for specific persons.
However, you can only will what you own. So if you only own half interest in your house with your wife owning the other half, you cannot leave the entire house to your son. Or if you made a Deed of Gift of the house to your son subject to a life interest to yourself, you cannot leave the house to someone else. Once you die it belongs to your son and it is not available to leave to someone else in your will.
Non-willable assets
Further, there are certain assets which are not willable. Once you die, they pass automatically outside of your will. If, for example, you and your wife own a house as “joint tenants”, upon your death the house will pass directly to you wife, once she survives you. If you have a joint bank account with your eldest daughter, upon your death the account becomes that of your daughter, once she survives you. Or if you have a life insurance policy and your youngest son is named as beneficiary, once you die the money due under the policy goes directly to your youngest son.
Beneficiaries
You must next consider the beneficiaries of your will, the people you want to leave your estate for. The obvious beneficiaries are your spouse and children. They are the ones who would benefit if you die intestate. However, you may want to leave gifts for your grandchildren, nieces, nephews, close friends and charities.
In our culture it is not usual for young people to make wills. But you may not be the typical young person. Or you may be experiencing a terminal illness at a young age. In that case you may have minor children at the time you are making your will. In addition to thinking about what assets you will leave for them you should consider the issue of appointing guardians for your children.
Excluding a natural beneficiary
Equally important to considering who you want to benefit from your estate may be to consider who you do not want to benefit from it. There may be someone who in the normal course of things would be considered a natural beneficiary, such as a son. However, you may decide to cut him out of your will. You may have had a bad falling out or be dissatisfied with how he is living his life. If your estranged son’s name is not mentioned at all in the will, he may use that to challenge the will on the ground that you were not of sound mind when you made the will. If he is successful in his challenge, the will would be declared invalid; the rules of intestacy would kick in and the estranged son would benefit. You can guard against such a challenge by leaving a small gift such as $100.00 to the estranged person. This gift shows that you did have him in mind but made a deliberate decision to cut him off.
Expenses and debts
You should bear in mind that what your beneficiaries are entitled to is the remainder of your estate after the settlement of all funeral expenses, taxes, legal expenses connected with administration of the estate, and debts. It is therefore a good idea to state in your will how your expenses and debts are to be paid. For example, if you have an account at Co-op Bank in which you think you have sufficient money to take care of your expenses and debts, you can designate that account as the source from which the expenses and debts of your estate are to be paid.
Residuary beneficiary
You should name a residuary beneficiary. A residuary beneficiary is a person who receives any property that you own at the time of your death that is not specifically left or goes to someone else. If you don’t name a residuary beneficiary and after your death it is revealed that you owned other property that for one reason or the other was not referred to in your will, then such property would be distributed as if you did not make a will.
Executor, witnesses and custody
At the preparatory stage it would also be good to consider who you want to be the executor of your will and also who would witness your will. Remember a witness to a will, nor their spouse, cannot be a beneficiary under your will.
Finally, you should give thought to where you would store your will so that it is safe and available after you die.