Free Will - Single with No Children

It is recommended that you select an Alternate Executor who will serve if the first choice is unavailable or unwilling to serve. You may name an Alternate to serve alone or name Alternate Co-Executors to serve together.

Under the latter option, you will also be asked to specify whether, if one of the Alternate Co-Executors is unable or unwilling to serve, the remaining Co-Executor will serve as sole Executor or if another name will be offered to serve so that there will still be two Alternate Co-Executors.

You may wish to require a bond on your Executor. A bond is similar to an insurance policy in that it covers against losses from misappropriation of assets by the Executor.

You may wish to check with a lawyer regarding the usual practice in your state and the risks of not requiring a bond. Because an Executor or Trustee might occasionally misappropriate assets--either through theft or error--most states require that they obtain a bond before they are given authority to act as an Executor or Trustee, UNLESS you state in your Will that no bond is required.

Note: These bonds are also known as Fiduciary bonds. A fiduciary is a person or organization who is given the authority and responsibility over assets which are not owned by that fiduciary. For example, an Executor carries out the terms of a will and a Trustee carries out the terms of a trust.

Specific bequests can include (a) intangible personal property, (b) tangible personal property, or (c) real property. The following are examples of these categories of specific bequests:

1. Intangible personal property.
   
   • An amount of cash
     
   • An entire bank account
     
   • Stocks, bonds or an entire brokerage account
     
   • A patent or copyright
     
   • Contract rights, such as the right to receive payments from a third party under a promissory note or an annuity
     
   • Business interests in a privately held corporation or partnership
   
   
2. Tangible personal property.
   
   • Jewelry
     
   • Heirlooms
     
   • Antiques
     
   • Vehicles
     
   • A boat, snowmobile, motorcycle, or airplane
     
   • Clothing and personal effects
     
   • A household item OR all household furnishings
   
   
3. Real property.
   
   • House or condominium
     
   • Cabin or vacation home
     
   • Bare lot
     
   • Farm land

Your estate is composed of your assets at the time of your death. Your assets may include the following:

• Joint Property
  
• Personal Property
  
• Life Insurance, Retirement and Annuities

Disinheriting means to deprive another person (an heir or spouse) of property that would have been distributed to that person under the laws of intestacy (dying without a valid Will).

It is the general practice for a person to provide for distributions to his or her family, particularly his or her spouse (if married) and children (if any), or in the case of a deceased child, such child's children (if any). Such persons are said to be "the natural objects of the Will writer's bounty."

If such persons exist but are not included in the Will, a question may arise as to whether you as the Will writer simply made a mistake. Further, such excluded persons may attempt to challenge the Will on this very basis, that is, that you simply made an error in excluding them from the Will.

If you intend to exclude someone that might expect to be included in the Will, it is advisable to include a statement in the Will that makes it clear that the omission was intentional. Although this type of exclusion generally applies only to individuals, this provision can also be used to list organizations that will be excluded.

This document allows you to distribute your residuary estate by selecting from a variety of alternatives. You can opt to distribute your residuary assets to a beneficiary who may be a person (or a charity), or several beneficiaries in shares stated as percentages.

This latter option would allow you to give 97% of your residuary estate to a beneficiary and 3% to a favorite charity.

Generally, most states protect an executor from personal liability in the absence of fraudulent conduct or bad faith (deliberate wrongdoing). However, by including a provision that relieves your executor from personal liability, your intentions are clear and your executor may be more willing to accept your request to serve.

The Executor's responsibilities are significant. Therefore, the person or organization you choose should be trustworthy and capable of handling financial matters. A business background may be helpful, but certainly is not required. If the Executor will be working with a capable lawyer, the Executor's responsibilities will be much easier to handle.

Many banks have trust departments that provide executor services, but of course, the bank will charge for its services.

Executor fees can range from 1-2 percent of total assets in some states to as much as 4-5 percent in other locations. An attorney can advise you regarding the customary fees charged in your locality. Usually, the fees are collected upon completion of the work. Frequently, a spouse or adult child is named as an executor, and in such cases, the Executor may "waive" or refuse to accept a fee for services.

An "Executor" or "Personal Representative" is the person or organization named in a Will who has the responsibility of carrying out the terms of the Will. Those responsibilities are to collect your assets, pay the debts and expenses of the estate, and distribute the remaining assets to the beneficiaries.

Some states use the term "Personal Representative," rather than "Executor," but generally, either term is acceptable. If you have no preference, use the term "Executor."

Some states have adopted laws which allow the Executor to administer your estate with a minimum of court supervision, if the circumstances of the estate appear to be simple.

States describe this method using various terms, such as "informal," "unsupervised," or "independent." Usually, if problems arise under these less formal methods, there are legal procedures available by which objecting parties can force the estate to revert to more formal methods.

By providing the Executor with the discretion to use less formal methods (where available), you may be able to minimize unnecessary expense and delay in the administration of your estate. However, you must balance these potential savings against the increased possibility of errors or even intentional misconduct by the Executor which could occur due to the reduced court oversight.

If you have any questions about whether your state allows informal administration, or whether you should authorize your Executor to adopt informal administration, a lawyer should be consulted.

Most states permit an individual to own property with another individual in a manner known as "joint with rights of survivorship." In such a case, when the first joint owner dies, the property passes to the second joint owner, even if the first owner attempted to give the property, through his or her Will, to a third person.

In many cases this never becomes a problem because the joint property is owned between spouses, and the Wills of the spouses provide that the property owned by the spouses should be given to the survivor of them. In those situations, there is no conflict between the ownership of the joint property and the provisions of the Wills.

On the other hand, if an individual owns property with another person "joint with rights of survivorship" and wants the property to pass to a third person under the Will, a lawyer should be consulted.

Life insurance, annuity, and pension plan agreements (and similar agreements) permit an individual to name those who will receive the proceeds of such agreements either as primary or alternate beneficiaries.

Your Will does NOT determine the beneficiary (recipient) of the proceeds of any of these agreements. Rather, the designations filed with the insurance company control the distribution of the proceeds of these agreements. Similarly, IRA accounts allow the owner to designate a beneficiary who will receive the proceeds of the account upon the death of the owner of the account.

Thus, after any drafting of a Will, you should review the agreements to make sure that the beneficiary designations of such agreements correspond to your wishes as set forth in the Will.

Including a sentence in your Will that you have no children simply makes it clear that you have no children. You may think that it will be obvious to your survivors that you have no children. However, if you die a number of years after your spouse, and if you do not have other close relatives, and/or if you were involved in more than one marriage, your survivors may not be sure whether or not you had children.

If you don't include the sentence, your survivors may not know whether the failure to mention children in your Will means you had no children or whether you had children but just didn't mention them. If you have children, there may be a requirement under your state's law that the children be notified about your Will even though they will not receive any inheritance.

Including a sentence in your Will that you are not married makes it clear that you do not have a spouse. You may think that it will be obvious to your survivors that you did not have a spouse. However, if you do not have close relatives, and/or if you were married at one time (perhaps a long time ago), your survivors may not be sure whether or not you have a spouse.

If you don't include the sentence, your survivors may not know whether the failure to mention your marital status means you had no spouse or that you had a spouse but just didn't mention it. In most states, a surviving spouse has rights and must be notified about your Will even though the spouse may not be entitled to receive any inheritance.

Personal property is either tangible or intangible.

Tangible personal property includes jewelry, furniture, cars, and other items that have a physical essence. Intangible personal property includes cash accounts, stocks, bonds, and other similar assets that are nonphysical.

A coin is tangible personal property, while 25 cents in a checking account is intangible personal property.

After your death, your estate assets will be used to pay any debts and expenses you have. The remaining assets will then be distributed according to the Will. The Will distributes assets in two ways: specific bequests and the residuary estate. Specific bequests, which are optional, may include intangible personal property, tangible personal property, or real property. If specific bequests are made in the Will, they will be paid before the residuary estate is distributed. If no specific bequests are made, the beneficiaries of the residuary estate will receive the entire estate.

This Will provides a section for specific bequests. After you first make the desired number of specific bequests of any type of property, you can leave "all my remaining tangible personal property" (after debts, expenses and preceding specific bequests) to a beneficiary.

It is not required that you include specific bequests, but if you do so, the Will then excludes any specific bequests of tangible personal property from later provisions that distribute your (remaining) tangible personal property.

Bequests are generally given in the order in which they appear in the Will. For example, if you make a specific bequest of a "1957 Chevy" to "Uncle Stan," the language of the Will automatically excludes the "1957 Chevy" from your later provision that distributes the (remaining) tangible personal property to "Aunt Angela." This language is necessary because the "1957 Chevy" would otherwise be distributed as a specific bequest to one person and as part of the tangible personal property category to a different beneficiary.

If the terms of the Will provide that the tangible personal property will be distributed to more than one beneficiary, the Executor is responsible for determining how the property should be divided. In most cases, the Executor will carry out this task by carefully considering the wishes of the beneficiaries who will be receiving the property.

If an individual will be selected as the Executor, that person should be a resident of the same state as you. Some states disqualify nonresident individuals entirely and other states allow nonresident individuals only under certain conditions.

If you want to select a nonresident Executor, you can find out what your state allows by contacting your county clerk of probate court or an attorney.

The Will distributes assets in two ways: specific bequests and the residuary estate. If specific bequests are made in the Will, they will be paid before the residuary estate is distributed. If no specific bequests are made, the beneficiaries of the residuary estate will receive the entire estate.

The residuary estate includes your assets that remain after paying debts and expenses and making distributions of specific bequests. In most estates the residuary estate includes most of the assets. If the optional specific bequests provision is not included, the residuary estate includes all of your remaining assets.

It is recommended that the Executor be given the authority to allocate specific items of personal property among a class of beneficiaries who are entitled to a group of such assets.

For example, assume your siblings, as a class, are entitled to receive your personal property. If they are unable among themselves to decide who gets your wristwatch, the Executor should have the authority to distribute the wristwatch to one sibling while making an equalization distribution of other items to the other sibling. Otherwise, the dispute could require expensive court intervention.

1. This Will does not dispose of property which passes on the death of the Will writer to a person by operation of law or by any contract. For example, the Will does not dispose of joint tenancy assets, and it does not normally apply to proceeds of life insurance on the Will writer's life or to his or her retirement plan benefits.

2. This Will is not designed to reduce taxes. The tax results of the choices made in this Will should be discussed with a competent tax advisor.

3. This Will is not valid unless it is signed by a Will writer who is of "sound mind" and of the minimum age for this state. In most states, the minimum age is eighteen. Some states permit an individual below the minimum age to sign a will if the person is married or in the military. Being of "sound mind" requires that the Will writer: (a) know that he or she is signing a will, (b) know the general nature and extent of his or her property, and (c) know the descendants or other relatives that would ordinarily be expected to share in the estate.

4. If the Will writer is unable to sign due to physical disability, another person may be able to sign on behalf of the Will writer, in the Will writer's presence, and at the express direction of the Will writer. However, this document does not provide the necessary language for another person to sign for the Will writer. For assistance with this procedure, a lawyer should be contacted.

5. The Will should be signed by the Will writer in the presence of three DISINTERESTED adult witnesses and a notary public. Many states require only two witnesses, but the signature of a third witness provides some protection against the possibility that one of the witness' signature will be invalid for some reason. For example, a person should not be a witness if that person is a beneficiary under the Will. In most states, if a beneficiary's signature is counted in order to satisfy the minimum number of witnesses, then the Will is not necessarily invalidated, but that "interested witness" may not receive a share of the estate any larger than if the Will writer had died without a will.

6. All of the witnesses must watch the Will writer sign this Will. The Will writer should verbally declare that the document is intended to be his or her Last Will and Testament, but the witnesses need not read the Will or know of its contents.

7. Each witness must sign his or her name with the Will writer and the other witnesses present. The witnesses should be satisfied that the Will writer willingly signed the document as his or her free and voluntary act, and that the Will writer was of full age and sound mind.

8. The Will writer should initial on the bottom margin of each page of the Will. This is done to prevent the later substitution of pages. To print out a line for initials at the bottom of each page of your document, choose Preferences from the view menu, Select the "Print" tab, and mark the appropriate checkbox.

9. The self-proving affidavit (or "Proof of Will" in some states) is a document which should be attached to the end of the Will, and which contains the Will writer's acknowledgment and the affidavit of the witnesses, made before a person authorized to take acknowledgments and administer oaths. The affidavit recites that the requisite formalities were observed in signing the Will. Although attaching the affidavit has nothing to do with the legality of the Will itself, it can speed the admission of the Will to probate after the death of the Will writer because it eliminates the need to have a witness appear at the probate proceeding to testify that the formalities in signing the Will were followed. The witnesses may not be available later when they are needed. A self-proved Will may be admitted to probate without additional witnesses or affidavits, but it is still subject to contest on such grounds as undue influence, lack of testamentary capacity, or prior revocation. In most cases, this affidavit should be signed and attached to the end of the Will. Some states do not recognize the self-proving option. Therefore, the affidavit will be of no use in those states. However, including the affidavit in those states will not invalidate the Will.

10. The date should be filled in wherever requested, using the date on which the actual signing takes place. This step could become essential to the validity of the Will (for example, if this Will revokes an earlier Will).

11. The number of total pages in the Will should be indicated, including the page(s) on which the witness signature lines appear. The page with the affidavit, if included, should not be counted because the affidavit is not a part of the Will itself.

12. The original of the Will should be kept in a secure location such as a safe deposit box at a bank, because only the signed original can be probated. A copy could be kept in the Will writer's home files. The Will writer may wish to provide a copy to his or her lawyer, or possibly to the person named as Executor. However, before distributing such copies, the Will writer should consider that it may become awkward to retrieve them later, should the Will writer decide to modify the Will and/or change the designation of Executor.

13. In most states, the Will cannot be changed by adding, deleting, or modifying words on the face of the Will. Such changes are usually disregarded. When changes are desired, it is recommended that the Will be revoked by signing a new will which expressly revokes the former Will.

14. If you indicated that personal property or residuary estate assets should be distributed in percentages, it is very important that each percentage total equals 100%. Check the printed totals before signing the Will.

This Will is appropriate if you are not married, have no children, and do not intend to have any children.

If, at death, your estate, including life insurance proceeds, is expected to be larger than the federal estate tax applicable exclusion amount ($5,000,000), it may be desirable to use more complex estate planning techniques that are not provided by this Will. For such cases, this Will can be used to prepare for an office conference with a lawyer who can assist you with the preparation of a more complex will.

A sole Executor serves alone. Alternatively, you can nominate any number of persons and/or organizations to serve together as Co-Executors. All actions taken by Co-Executors must be unanimous. Therefore, difficulties and/or delays are sometimes encountered if:

1. the Co-Executors reside some distance away from each other and documents to be signed must therefore be circulated among them, or
   
2. the Co-Executors are unable to unanimously agree on some course of action.

Also, an attractive combination of Co-Executors is a bank trust department and a family member; the bank can assume responsibility for all of the court documents, tax returns, asset management functions, and transfer documents, while the family-member Executor can provide useful insight about the beneficiaries for purposes of distributions.

Finally, some states require (or at least prefer) that at least one Executor be a resident of your state or else be bonded. Therefore, in order to allow an out-of-state Executor who is your primary choice, to serve without bond, you may want to add a Co-Executor to serve, who is a resident of your state.

The Will distributes assets in two ways: specific bequests and the residuary estate. Specific bequests, which are optional, may include cash (or other intangible personal property), tangible personal property, or real property.

If specific bequests are made in the Will, they will be paid before the residuary estate is distributed. If no specific bequests are made, the beneficiaries of the residuary estate will receive the entire estate.

A specific bequest is a gift (bequest) of cash, a specific item, or a category of items to a named person or organization. For example, a wedding ring, $1,000, an antique, a car, or all of your remaining tangible personal property.

Some persons have specific items that they want to give to a specific person (or organization). For example, a mother may want to make sure that her jewelry goes to her daughter, or grandparents may decide that they would like to give $1,000 to each of their five grandchildren.

Specific bequests are usually made at the beginning of the Will, followed by other provisions that provide for the distribution of the other assets of the estate.

This document allows you to include language which requires that your beneficiaries survive you by at least thirty days in order to receive a bequest. The thirty-day survival requirement provision is sometimes included because if the beneficiary dies within thirty days after you, you might prefer that the bequest pass to a person that you choose, rather than to someone chosen by the deceased beneficiary in his or her Will.

For example, in Tom's Will, he gives his motorcycle to his friend, Jack. Jack also has a Will in which he gives everything to his son, Jack Jr. Assume that Tom dies, and then Jack dies less than thirty days later. Without the thirty-day survival clause in Tom's Will, the motorcycle will pass from Tom to Jack and on to Jack Jr., whom Tom has not met and cares little about. Instead, Tom should include the thirty-day survival clause in which case the motorcycle will pass to an alternate beneficiary of his choosing, or perhaps be distributed as part of the residuary of his estate.

In fact, even if the Beneficiary's beneficiaries are acceptable to the Will writer (assuming the Will writer knows or cares who they are), by including this survival requirement, the Will writer can avoid having the distribution pass through the Beneficiary's estate, with possible death taxes assessed in that estate, before reaching the ultimate recipient.

Most people decide to waive (not require) a bond because:

1. the Executor or Trustee chosen is trusted, and
   
2. because bonds:
   1. are expensive,
      
   2. are usually not necessary if a bank is the Executor or Trustee because most banks are already bonded, and
      
   3. require greater court involvement in some states because the court must ensure that the bond is handled properly.

A Will is a document in which you (the Will Writer or "Grantor") state who will receive your property (the "Beneficiaries") and who will carry out your wishes (the "Executor").

After your death, your estate assets will be used to pay any debts or expenses you have. The remaining assets will then be distributed according to the Will. The Will distributes assets in two ways: specific bequests and the residuary estate.

The Will should be signed by the Will writer in the presence of three DISINTERESTED adult witnesses and a notary public. Many states require only two witnesses, but the signature of a third witness provides some protection against the possibility that one of the witness' signature will be invalid for some reason.

For example, a person should not be a witness if that person is a beneficiary under the Will. In most states, if a beneficiary's signature is counted in order to satisfy the minimum number of witnesses, then the Will is not necessarily invalidated, but that "interested witness" may not receive a share of the estate any larger than if the Will writer had died without a will.