Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Default clause in your Will

Most people provide for their spouse and children in their Will. And if a child predeceases you, it is generally provided that his or her share will go their descendants.
But what if your spouse and all your children predecease you? This is, in effect, what happens when there is the catastrophic accident. To whom do you want your property to go? If you have said nothing in your Will, then it will go to your "heirs" or your closest relatives. Not so bad. But what about your spouse's family? If you had died first with all of the kids and your spouse had survived a few days, then everything would go to your spouse's "heirs." In either example, this is not what most people would prefer.
If they have thought about it, most will provide that some share goes to one spouse's family and some share will go to the other spouse's family. Often this is expressed as a percentage: 50% to my heirs and 50% to the heirs of my spouse. This is actually a very simple and fair way to handle a very unlikely event.
If you do want to keep your assets in the family, then the split doesn't have to be a 50/50 split. It can be 60/40 or 80/20. The important thing is that both Wills have the same provisions so that, let's say, husband's family gets 40% of the family assets and wife's family gets 60% of the family assets. How you determine what percentage goes to which spouse's family can depend on one or more of several factors:
1) From which side of the family did the family assets come
2) Which side of the family needs to the assets the most
3) Which side of the family do you like the best.

There are other options for a default, like a charity or friends. The most important thing is that your Will provide for what you would like to have happen.

No comments:

Post a Comment