Most people don’t like to think about death and for that reason many more people don’t take the necessary legal steps that they should to ensure their wishes are carried out when they die. Furthermore, not taking the proper legal steps will mean that you pass along a lot more headaches to the ones that you love when they are grieving and a lot less money to them due to the extra expenses involved when a will hasn’t been made. If you have determined to get your finances in order for yourself here and now and are taking the steps to save money for yourself, do you really want to give a large chunk of it back to the government because you didn’t take the time to prepare a will? If you don’t currently have a will, make sure that it is something that you place at the top of your financial to do list.
Depending where you live, you may be able to be be your own lawyer while creating your will. Libraries and the Internet have an abundance of legal documents for free or a small fee. If you decide to do it yourself, you need to make absolutely sure that the document and all its provisions you create will be valid in the state where you live 9each state has different laws, so you need to be clear on your state’s laws). The last thing you want is to try and save money making your will yourself to find that you made a mistake that invalidates it.
If you decide to hire a lawyer, you need to be aware of the different ways that lawyers charge for their services. Knowing the answers to thee questions will help make the writing of the will go smoothly and take less time which will save you money:
By taking the time to know the answers to these questions and getting them written into your will as soon as possible, you will ensure that all the money and assets you have worked hard to obtain during your life will go to the people you ant them to go to with the least amount going to government institutions.
One last note when picking out a lawyer to write your will. You probably want to have a younger lawyer write your will for you. That is, you want someone who has a good chance of outliving you so he or she will still be alive when you pass away. This will ensure that you have someone who understood your wishes and prepared your will when it’s time to place the documents you wrote into action.
Adapted with permission from Inexpensive Lawyer