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Makes things easier for when you're gone. You'll probably have some next of kin, even if you're on bad terms with them. If you die without a will, the state en
by noirscape 4y ago
Makes things easier for when you're gone. You'll probably have some next of kin, even if you're on bad terms with them.
If you die without a will, the state ends up determining what happens with your possessions. That usually means that they'll go down a list of relatives and ask them "hey, this person died, do you want to inherit their belongings". If they find absolutely nobody (this happens a lot with people that die with a lot of debt, since you also inherit the debt), the will instead falls to the state.
The order makes some sense (first is spouse, then kids, then siblings, then direct family and finally extended family), but it's of course something left up to the present state of the law and depending on how that might change, something could occur you're not happy with.
One specific example of this (albeit not for your case) is in the event you're gay; gay people often had to prepare their will specifically because the state wouldn't acknowledge them as the spouse (this was even with the "civil arrangements"), so the state would just skip over their spouse for inheritance and relinquish stuff to their family instead.
This doesn't apply of course if you're not married, but it's one simple example in how that default order might have some asterisks that are easily avoidable if you just have a will.
Basically it's useful to have one to avoid a lot of complications in the event of an untimely death (which can happen for all sorts of reasons).
- lynx23 4y ago> Makes things easier for when you're gone. ... even if you're on bad terms with them. Thanks for your detailed answer. You haven't convinced me it is important either way, but I at least know now that I havent missed something important.
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 4y agoIt seems like you've only made the case for people who don't like the standard list of inheritors or for gay people, not everyone like you mentioned before.
- noirscape 4y agoI'm not the parent replier. Regardless, if you like the standard list of inheritors, it's still worth writing it down. That means that the executor of your will knows that that is the order you prefer. Laws can be changed at any point and it could say, be changed in order to prioritize your parents over your siblings; if you don't care at all about what happens with your belongings after your death, yeah fair, there's nothing I could do to convince you, but for anyone else that's worth taking into account. Having it explicitly spelled out in your will ensures that that doesn't change, even if the law does. Gay people was just an example of what might seem sensible on paper could still have a strange asterisk attached to it.
- flandish 4y agoFYI you do not always inherit debt. It gets paid from your estate, IF they file for it. Source: lost my wife to cancer at 41. She was 41. I was 32. I paid zero of that debt when she died. Just ignored it. It was all in her name. I might have also been fully ptsd’d. But my credit is fine, the probate period is LONG (10+ years) gone, etc… Sure my evidence is anecdotal but no - debt is not “transferred” to your name like you inherit it.
- jacquesm 4y agoYou do not necessarily have to inherit the debt, even if you don't know about it beforehand. Where I live that is called 'accepting an inheritance beneficially', it may have a different legal term where you live. The essence is that you only accept the inheritance if, and only if it brings you a net benefit and otherwise you reject it. Usually this costs a few units of your local currency to arrange. Note that all this stuff can get very complex in a hurry especially when taxes are involved (and they usually are) so you should definitely hire the help of a professional when dealing with this for anything exceeding a few thousand.