The bottom line is if you love and cherish your family, you MUST take the time to write your will. It ensures your assets are given to your family or other beneficiaries based on your wishes.
Writing your Last Will and Testament is the most basic act of estate planning. Nevertheless, preparing one’s Last Will has been deferred or ignored by the majority of the adult American population. In fact, some 70% of Americans have no Last Will.
Against this backdrop, the excuses for not having a Last Will typically include the “I’ve got plenty of time” excuse. As reported in a recent article in Forbes, Tell Your Family You Love Them — Write Your Will, there are certain fundamentals only you can control when it comes to your estate.
In reality, there isn’t a single moment in your life when you’re ready to plan your estate. You don’t just reach some magical “pause button” where everything stops and there’s nothing new happening in your life, your business, your investments, or with your loved ones. Likewise, there is no time to stop planning, and for the same reasons.
Estate planning is not an event, but rather a lifetime process. Beginning today, you can put a plan in place with enough flexibility to cover many of life’s twists and turns. And, of course, you should always update your plan to reflect major changes – whether in the law, your life, your assets or the lives of your loved ones.
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Reference: Forbes (March 30, 2011) “Tell Your Family You Love Them — Write Your Will”