Last Will and Testament

A well written Will identifies who your family is, who you want to handle the administration of your estate after you die and how you want your estate distributed upon your death.

If you die "intestate" (without a Will), the legislators in Olympia have, in effect, written your Will for you, providing that your closest family members, in a certain order, will be your heirs.  A judge will appoint an "Administrator" of your estate.  Friends and charities cannot share in your estate if you die intestate (unless, of course, you have provided for them with life insurance benefits or by some other means).

In your Will you designate who is to serve as "Personal Representative" of your estate, and you should designate alternates.  The Personal Representative (in some states called the "Executor") has the duties of collecting your assets, paying your debts and distributing the assets in your estate according to the terms of your Will.  If you prefer, you can name a bank trust department, rather than an individual, to serve as Personal Representative. You can also name multiple people to serve as Co-Personal Representatives.

In your Will you can name a guardian to raise your children in the event that you die leaving minor children.

With a Will you can direct that the assets in your estate are to be distributed in essentially any manner that you desire.

Your Will can make reference to the fact that there may exist a separate document or list kept by you indicating where you want certain items of tangible personal property to go, such as household furnishings, collections, automobiles and keepsakes. If your Will contains such a provision, that list becomes a part of your Will to the extent that the list is not inconsistent with the terms of the Will itself.

In your Will you can also, of course, leave specific items, specific dollar amounts or specific percentages of your estate to particular family members, non-relatives and to charities.

You can direct in your Will that one or more Trusts are to be established after your death to provide the benefit of income and assets to your spouse, your children, your grandchildren or others, or to provide for charities over a period of time after your death. Trusts are a great way to give someone the benefit of an inheritance over time without giving the ownership and control of the assets to that beneficiary shortly after you die. There are lots of great reasons to establish Trusts including, for example, to provide for financially immature heirs, to provide for an incapacitated spouse or child and to avoid or minimize estate taxes.

It is important to note that the Washington State Legislature has created a complicated estate tax that taxes your estate if all of the property in your estate on the date of your death, including your life insurance death benefits and other "nonprobate" assets, exceed approximately $2,200,000 in value.  That is, the first $2,200,000 that you die with is not typically taxed.  However, the amount over $2,200,000 is taxed heavily and the taxes are due within nine months following the date of your death. Proper planning, however, allows a married couple in Washington to leave up to $4,400,000 to your family members free of the estate tax.  Legal planning using one or more types of Trusts, sometimes in conjunction with lifetime gifting, can help reduce or avoid taxes.  Such estate tax planning should not be ignored until after the first spouse's death.  Congress has also created a complicated estate tax, and a gift tax but, under current law, the Federal estate tax does not apply unless you die with an estate valued at well over $10,000,000.

Wills, to be valid, must be prepared properly and must be executed in strict conformity with the applicable statutes.  Any failure in that preparation and execution can jeopardize the validity and the enforceability of the Will.

People work hard all their life, scrimp and save, shop the sales, deny themselves vacations and make sacrifices day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, all in an effort to make their money last until they die and to hopefully have something left to leave to their loved ones.  Yet so many people die without undertaking any estate planning, without ever getting advice from an estate planning lawyer and without ever executing well-written and validly enforceable Wills.  People seem to think that they don’t need to do any planning and won’t need a Will, or related estate planning documents, until they are old and gray. That is foolish thinking.  

And here is a final bit of advice.  Don’t consider writing your own Will on a home computer with a computer program "valid in every state", or on forms purchased at the bookstore.  Why risk a Will contest after you die or risk having your estate pass to people you never intended to have share in your life savings?