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A will is a document where you say who gets what and who makes that happen. Someone named in a will to receive your assets is called an heir or beneficiary, and the person put in charge of making that happen is called a personal representative or an executor. It’s important to note, though, that wills do not apply to assets where you have a surviving joint owner of that asset or to assets where you have a living beneficiary designated. For example, on retirement accounts and life insurance, if you have a spouse named and then your children, then that asset will be payable directly to the living beneficiary whose name is separate from what a will says. If you have a will, and a will is critical for your estate plan, you need to make sure that it’s in sync with everything owned jointly and also everything where you have a beneficiary named to make sure it all is working together according to your wishes.
Also, for any property passing under the will, it’s important to note that that will has to be filed with a probate court after your death and reviewed and approved before anyone named in the will, the personal representative can act on your behalf, gather your assets, pay any creditors who might be owed money, and then ultimately distribute the assets to your heirs. A will is a document that does have to go through probate, a common myth we run across. People think that a will is a magical document that covers every estate planning scenario, but it doesn’t. It’s critical, and you need it, but you need to make sure that you understand it goes through probate before it is effective, and that is a will.
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An estate plan is a plan that comprehensively covers a lot of contingencies beyond just who inherits your assets. Who gets what is definitely an important question, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Estate planning covers also incapacity and disability. Who is making sure that your bills are paid and your assets are being managed if you can’t do that? Who is making medical decisions for you, and who can talk to your doctors just to find out how you’re doing? So, an estate plan covers that piece. It also covers guardianship. If you’re parents of a minor child, you want to make sure that you’ve got the short-term emergency situation covered, who can be with your children overnight or for a short period if you need help, and then also who would raise them. That’s long-term guardianship.
An estate plan covers that piece, and of course, as I mentioned, an estate plan covers who gets what. You might use a will to say that. You might use a trust. Check out our FAQs on what is a will and what is a trust to learn more about those. But, the important thing to note is that an estate plan is a comprehensive plan. It covers a lot of pieces, from incapacity and disability to passing away to what happens long after that. If you’ve got a child who needs assets, someone else in charge of assets for them until they’re mature. What does that look like and how does that happen?
And also, the legacy component of estate planning really cannot be underestimated. Your family is going to remember you by the videos you leave behind, by letters you write, not by the bland legal documents. We need those and they need to be excellently drafted, which we do, but they’re really going to care about a video or a letter or audio or photographs, that kind of thing. And so, the legacy component is just as important, in our opinion, as the legal documents. So, an estate plan covers all of those aspects.
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The short answer, honestly, is yes. A will says who gets what, but that’s not the only question when it comes to estate planning. Estate planning covers what if you’re incapacitated or disabled, who’s in charge of your assets and your medical decisions or your minor children? If you’re a parent of minors, who’s caring for them during that time, and then ultimately, who would be raising them if something were to happen? So, you need more than a will.
Every adult in Arizona and any state needs a power of attorney that states who is in charge of your assets if you are incapacitated and who’s in charge of your medical decision-making if you cannot communicate with your doctor. You need a living will that instructs your doctor to pull the plug if you are brain-dead on life support. You also need a HIPAA authorization that names people who can talk to your doctors so that your family members and loved ones can know how you’re doing. And you need all of that in addition to a will. Whether you need a will and a trust is a separate question, but definitely, a will alone doesn’t cover all of your estate planning needs.
Also, if you’re a parent of minor children, you’d want the guardianship completely covered. Short-term guardianship for an emergency situation. Long-term guardianship, who would raise your children? Emergency wallet cards to make sure the information about your estate plan is immediately available in an emergency. A letter to your children, a letter to their guardian, just so that they know things you would want them to know if you need to write something down, if your children are very young, or if a guardian would want some advice from you about what to do. That is a way to supplement just a will to make sure that everyone knows ultimately your wishes, your values, and your stories to pass down.
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A Living Will sometimes gets confused with a Last Will that says who gets your assets after you die. A Living Will applies while you’re still alive. So, if you are in a situation where you are terminally and irreversibly ill or injured. You’re unable to communicate, and you’re on life support, your Living Will clarifies at what time, after what number of days, would you want to be taken off life support.
So, that could be three days, or five days, or seven days, it’s totally up to you. But the idea is that you’ve thought about it ahead of time. You’ve put it in writing so that way, if your family does find that they’re in that situation with you and they want to know what you would do, then you clarify in your Living Will what you would do.
After that number of days, if there’s no improvement seen, they’ll take you off life support. And the nice thing about that is family members differ on what they think that person would want, and so somebody might say three days whereas somebody else might say seven days, and you’ve got family conflict.
Whereas, if you just decide ahead of time that five days is right for you or whatever you decide, the idea is that you have taken the time to think through it, put it in writing, and then your family knows that’s precisely what you would want.
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So if you pass away with no will in place, the law of your state of residency determines who will inherit your assets. So state law dictates who gets what if you haven’t clarified in a will or a trust who your heirs and beneficiaries are. State law tends to follow kind of what you might expect people to choose. A surviving spouse is the primary heir, and then children after that. If there are no spouse or children living, then your assets goes to your parents. And if your parents are deceased then everything goes to your siblings, and nieces, and nephews, until someone is available to receive your estate.
But it can get really tricky, if you have a blended family, or either you or the surviving spouse have children from a different relationship. Because the numbers get a little tricky, and don’t just go flat out 100%, or in equal shares in that case. So even though Arizona law does fill in the gaps to make sure that people who are close to you receive your estate, it might be different from what you would want. And it also doesn’t clarify who is in charge of the assets left to a minor or an incapacitated beneficiary.
So, state law is really just following the family tree, but really doesn’t do a whole lot more than that to make sure that those who do receive your assets receive them in a way that you would want, and maybe at specific ages along the way that you would want. So, if you die without a will, state laws fills in the gaps. But even then it is important to make sure that your plan is laid out, in writing, so you decide who inherits your assets, not the law of your state of residence.
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