Why Every Person Should Have a Will
You might think that you don’t earn enough money to warrant a will or that your assets are insignificant and a will is unnecessary for you. However, there are lots of good reasons to have will drawn up. It doesn’t matter how old you are or how much money you have, a will is an excellent idea for anyone.
Protect Your Loved Ones
The best reason to draw up a will (under the supervision of a lawyer, of course) is to make sure that your loved ones are taken care of. If you have a spouse or children that you want to make sure are protected after you die, then you need to have your assets appointed to them in your will. I you don’t, then that money could go to the people that you don’t want it to. In many cases debtors will be the first recipients of your assets, but you can will valuables such as jewelry, collectibles and other physical items to persons and protect them from being repossessed or sold away to pay for bills.
You can also ensure where all your assets go. Without a will draw up, it will be up to those who are most closely related to you to divide up your possessions. If you want to ensure certain people receive certain assets, then you can only really do that through a will. It allows you to control what you own after you are gone, and that’s powerful thing.
It can also protect your loved ones from having to pay taxes and fees, in some cases. By dividing up your assets, your spouse and children may not be responsible for paying on certain debts or for covering taxes that they would otherwise have to pay. If you want to ensure that they pay as little as possible after you are gone, then you need to assign everything you own through the will.
It May Be Cheaper and Easier Than You Think
We have already covered most of the benefits of a will, but now we want to talk about why it can be a good idea for someone no matter how many assets they own (or how few). You may not think that you have enough money to spare for a will, and it can be expensive, but that’s only if you have a vast estate.
The average person has a very straightforward set of assets that won’t take a lawyer long to sift through and sort out. Besides, there are many firms you could find operating in different service areas around you, so it wouldn’t be difficult to locate a good solicitor either. Drawing up a will for most people, even with the cost of the lawyer factored in, wouldn’t be too expensive. It can save their family money in the long run, so that minor expense should pay off itself.
Keep Everything in the Family
You may have promised some of your family members that they can have certain items when you are gone, but once you have passed, then it will only be your family’s word for the lawyers and debtors to take. That may not hold much force, and they could lose those valuable possessions that you promised them.
If you have it in writing that certain items will be passed down to certain family members, then that will have a far greater impact and bearing on where they go. Your debts may determine how valid parts of your will are, but you can be sure that if it is possible to give certain assets to certain family members, that having the will in place to do that will be much more effective than just making a verbal promise before you die.
