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Our Essential Will Package was designed by real lawyers. Get the three essential documents you need for one low price.
The Will Package ensures that you have all the documents you need. Estate Planning is like a three-legged stool. What happens if a three-legged stool is missing a leg? It’s not stable; it falls over. Estate Planning also has three “legs” or parts: Your Will, Durable Power of Attorney, and Advance Directive for Health Care. Without all three, your Estate Planning is not stable; it won’t fully protect you. Our personalized Will Package includes all the components you need.
Legally, each person needs their own Package; there are no such things as “joint” Wills, Powers of Attorney, or Advance Directives. So if you are a married couple, or if you have a friend or familymember who also needs a Will, then you should buy two packages – you save $300. When you purchase two packages, you get two Access Links so that each person can each use one of the Access Links to get a complete Essential Will Package. Remember: EACH ACCESS LINK WORKS ONE TIME ONLY.
Everyone needs a Will to control what happens to their property and assets after they die. A Will controls who inherits your assets and property and who administers the estate. Without a Will, the legal system will determine what happens to your property and assets. You will have no control. Directions you express during your lifetime will be ignored.
The Will Package ensures that you have all the documents you need. Estate Planning is like a three-legged stool. What happens if a three-legged stool is missing a leg? It’s not stable; it falls over. Estate Planning also has three “legs” or parts: Your Will, Durable Power of Attorney, and Advance Directive for Health Care. Without all three, your Estate Planning is not stable; it won’t fully protect you. Our personalized Will Package includes all the components you need.
You need a Durable Power of Attorney to deal with key legal and financial matters as you get older. This document controls who will deal with key legal and financial matters for you as you get older. If you do not have a Durable Power of Attorney, then when you are unable to make legal and financial decisions for yourself, it will be very difficult and expensive for your family. They may even have to go to court to protect you.
You need an Advance Directive for Health Care to control medical decisions when you can’t communicate with health care providers. This document controls your medical decisions when you cannot communicate. Without an Advance Directive, you may be kept on life support until all your money runs out. You will have no control over medical decisions when you can’t communicate with health care providers.
Living Trusts are complicated, expensive, and usually a waste of time and money. Why do so many people think they “need” a Trust? Simple: Attorneys falsely convince people that they “need” a Trust because Attorneys can charge a lot of money for Trusts. What’s even worse is that Trusts can give you a false sense of security that once you have a trust, “everything is going to be okay.” But that’s not true. A Trust can make sense for some people, such as people who care for a child or family member with special needs, or who want to control how they pass on their ownership of a closely held business. But if you are healthy and under 60 years old, and if your assets are not worth over $2 million, then you probably do not need a Trust. For most people, Trusts are a waste of money, time‐consuming, require a lot of ongoing work on your part, and expensive and troublesome to modify – and even with a Trust, you still need a Will, a Power of Attorney, and an Advance Directive for Health Care.
1. Select your Legal Documents.
2. Complete your purchase.
3. We immediately send you an email with an Access Link. The email message will guide you through the steps to complete and print your documents.
4. IMPORTANT! THE ACCESS LINK IN THE EMAIL MESSAGE WORKS ONE TIME ONLY. SO PLEASE PRINT THE EMAIL AND READ IT CAREFULLY BEFORE CONTINUING. DO NOT USE THE ACCESS LINK UNTIL YOU HAVE ALL OF YOUR INFORMATION READY.
5. After you enter all of your information, we provide your documents to you instantly! Save the documents to your computer and print them out. Then follow the instructions that come with your documents to have your documents legally signed, witnessed, and notarized.
Many people find it difficult to choose their devisees. “Devisees” are people who inherit something through a will. Devisees do not need to be family; you can name anyone as a devisee in your will, or as a beneficiary in your trust. Please use the following information and worksheet to make your decisions about who you select to inherit your property.
1. First Things First: Can You Disinherit People? If you want to keep someone from getting any part of your estate, then you can specifically exclude the person in your trust or will. This is called “disinheriting” the person. The only type of person who cannot be disinherited with a will is a spouse. This is because spouses have special rights protected by law. If you are divorced, then you need to remember two very important things: First, you need to execute a new will as soon as possible after a divorce. Second, an ex‐spouse – after a legal divorce – does not have a right to inherit from the other ex‐spouse. If you absolutely want to disinherit a spouse, then talk with your attorney about a trust.
2. Types of Property to Consider: There are four main categories to consider when choosing your devisees/beneficiaries: tangible property, digital property, special gifts, and “residue.” Let’s consider each one separately.
A. Tangible Property: Tangible property (items you can touch) includes the following: household goods and furnishings, personal vehicles, recreational equipment, clothing, jewelry, tools, guns and other weapons, electronic devices, personal effects, and other tangible personal items for personal or household use.
B. Digital Property: Digital property includes files stored on digital devices, such as files stored on desktops, laptops, tablets, peripherals, storage devices, mobile telephones, smartphones, and any similar digital device. Digital property also includes emails received, email accounts, digital music, digital photographs, digital videos, software licenses, social network accounts, file sharing accounts, financial accounts, domain registrations, DNS service accounts, web hosting accounts, tax preparation service accounts, online stores, affiliate programs, other online accounts and similar digital items.
C. Special Gifts: Special gifts are any item of property that you set aside for a specific person. A special gift can be any kind of property. What makes it “special” is that you designate a specific devisee or beneficiary to receive it.
D. Residue: The “residue” of an estate is everything else.
3. The Typical Distribution Plan: Here’s an easy way to think through the process of choosing your beneficiaries/devisees. Don’t try to think about too much at once. Instead, take it one step at a time, as follows:
Step 1: Do you want to disinherit anyone? If you want to disinherit any person(s), you should explicitly name such person(s) in your will or trust. On the worksheet below, write down the name(s) of any person(s) you want to disinherit. (Note that you only need to state that you disinherit them; you are not required to give a reason.)
Step 2: Do you want to make any “special gifts” to anyone? Do you have anything that you want to give to specific people? This could be a piece of jewelry, an amount of money, an heirloom, a car, a house, a website, your teacup collection, a donation to your favorite charity, or your vintage 1967 Corvette … anything. Don’t try to decide about each and every item you own. Instead, just make sure you don’t forget those two, or three, or six, or whatever number of items that you think should go to specific people. Use the worksheet below to make a list of those special gifts.
Step 3: Distribute the rest of your tangible property and digital property. For the rest of your tangible and digital property (that is, after your special gifts), follow the “keep it simple” rule. Your lawyer will draft your will or trust so that your personal representative or your trustee will be authorized to distribute the rest of your tangible property and digital property among your relatives and friends according to your wishes. This means that all you have to do is communicate with your representative/trustee during your lifetime and tell them what you want. Often this is as easy as telling them that you want your family to decide what items they want and then donate or sell the rest (if sold, then the proceeds of the sale will go to the “residue” of your estate to be properly distributed).
Step 4: Choose who gets the residue. Now your estate is down to a single “pot.” Anything that you don’t give as a special gift and any tangible or digital property that none of your relatives or friends want will be sold and the money will all go into a single bank account. For example, let’s say that you own a house, but you don’t make a special gift of the house to anyone in particular because you want your representative or trustee to sell the house and distribute the proceeds to your devisees/beneficiaries. In that case, your personal representative or trustee will sell the house, put the money into the estate account, and then distribute the money according to your will or trust. So how do you want to divide the pot? The best way to do it is to use percentages. You don’t know what will happen with the economy, investment and property values, etc., so using percentages keeps things fair by making sure each devisee/beneficiary at least gets something. The trick is to go in order and also take into account what happens if one or more of the beneficiaries/devisees predeceases you. Here are some options:
Option 1: For married couples, the first option is to provide that the surviving spouse inherits everything. When the surviving spouse dies, the “pot” will then be divided equally among the surviving children only (this means that if any child predeceases the surviving spouse, then each of the surviving children get a little more). If all of the children predecease the surviving spouse, then the “pot” is divided equally among any surviving grandchildren.
Option 2: For married couples, there is also another option. This option provides that the surviving spouse inherits everything (just like Option 1). However, the difference is what happens after the surviving spouse dies. Option 2 is to provide that when the surviving spouse dies, the “pot” is divided equally among the surviving children, but if any child predeceases the surviving spouse, then the share that would have gone to the deceased child is instead divided equally among any surviving children of the deceased child (but if that child had no children of his or her own, then his or her share goes to his or her siblings, just like in Option 1). This is sometimes called “per stirpes” – a term you may have heard or read.
Option 3: What about single people? If you are single, you can leave everything to one person, or you can leave percentages of the “pot” to a number of different people or organizations (such as charities). Just remember to designate what happens when any of those people die.
Keep your documents in an obvious place in your home. Your family and the representatives you have named in your documents should know where to find the documents if anything happens to you. Do not place your documents in a bank safe-deposit box because your family and representatives may have trouble accessing your bank safe-deposit box after your death.
In addition:
Last Will and Testament: Tell your Personal Representative where to find your Will. You can also give a copy to your Personal Representative if you are comfortable with sharing the information in your Will at this time.
Durable Power of Attorney: Give copies to the Agent(s) appointed in the document and your financial institutions.
Advance Directive for Health Care: Give copies to the Health Care Representative(s) named in the document and your health care providers.
Questions? Suggestions? We'd love to hear form you!
