San Francisco Wills Lawyer: If You Care About Your Inheritance, Name Beneficiaries!

As a San Francisco wills lawyer, I know that many people think about … and even openly discuss who they want to receive their possessions if something unexpectedly happens to them.  They truly believe their expressed wishes hold legal weight and their family can use these directions to distribute their estate accordingly following their passing.

Yet merely expressing to loved ones who you want to inherit your estate and actually documenting your choice of beneficiaries in a will are two very different things in the eyes of the law!

That’s because your undocumented “wishes” will not keep your estate out of probate court. The law is very clear that if you die without a will in place, the decision as to who gets what following your passing is no longer yours to make.

Instead, when an estate goes through probate court, a judge (who doesn’t know you or your wishes!) will have the responsibility of distributing your property directly to your surviving heirs (as defined by the Probate Code) as he or she sees fit.  This can be a problem for a number of reasons.

First of all, your “heirs” may not be your desired beneficiaries. You may have wanted to leave your property or other affects to a friend, partner, or even a distant relative much further down the bloodline. Or perhaps you thought about leaving some money to your heirs upon your passing, but you also wanted to leave a few specific assets to your favorite charitable organization. Either way, without having such specific wishes in writing, a judge would have no choice but to leave your assets to immediate heirs if there were no beneficiaries named in their place.

And even if you did want your biological heirs to inherit your entire estate upon your passing, allowing the probate judge to make such determinations is still problematic in that you have no say as to who specifically gets what if something happens to you (e.g., Mary gets the car, Billy gets the house, Sally gets the family heirloom collection).

Finally, it may be the case that you don’t want a certain heir to inherit any of your estate upon your passing.   The decision to disinherit an heir can be made for a variety of reasons, but unless you also spell this out in writing, he or she may still have legal claim to the assets you wanted to prevent them from getting their hands on.

Therefore, it’s extremely important that you take the time to make your wishes about beneficiaries known in your will or other estate planning documents while you are still alive and well to handle such matters.  Remember, you’ve worked hard to acquire everything you own and it only makes sense that you are the one who designates who gets what if the unexpected happens.

If you’re not sure how to get started documenting your end-life-wishes so they hold up in a court of law, give our Menlo Park estate planning and probate office a call at (650) 422-3313 and schedule one of our Legacy Planning Sessions. These sessions are normally $500, but you can come in free of charge with the mention of this article. However, this offer is limited to the first 10 callers so make your appointment today!

March 2nd, 2011 Posted to Estate Planning | Comments (1)