Whether you like it or not, your final message to your family will be delivered AFTER your death. If you were caring and considerate enough to leave a will, it will speak for you to those you leave behind. If, however, you failed to put your family’s welfare above your own laziness or superstitions, then that will be your final message to your family. We all profess to love our families, but love is what you do - not what you say.

As you can see, I feel very strongly about this matter and for very good reasons. My first “real”jobs were as a legal secretary and paralegal and I usually worked for family law attorneys who did real estate closings, wills, divorces, etc. I will never forget my first experience with the fireworks that can result when someone dies without a will. In this instance, an elderly woman died without a will and Jeff, one of the attorneys, was meeting with her two adult children to try and sort things out. Less than 20 minutes into the meeting, I heard a loud noise and Jeff came charging out of his office, holding his handkerchief to his bleeding forehead, and he asked me to drive him to the emergency room to get stitches.

During the drive, Jeff told me that the son and the mother both lived locally while the daughter lived many states away so the son and the wife took primary care of the mother. The mother lived in her own house but it was an older home so her son spent a great deal of his spare time doing her yard work, patching roofs, repairing appliances, clogged drains, leaking toilets, replacing air conditioning units, water heaters, and - in general - replacing or repairing everything as the house aged. The son’s wife cooked and cleaned for his mother, ran her errands and got her groceries, etc. The mother had always told both her son and daughter that she was leaving a (much) larger share of the house to her son when she died to compensate him for all of the time and money he spent over the years to enable her to stay in her home until she died. The daughter had always expressed her complete agreement with the plan because she had borne none of the care of her mother for all those years.

I’m sure you are way ahead of me at this point and have guessed that the mother talked a good game but never actually made a will. Jeff told the brother and sister that even though their mother failed to make a will that they could respect her wishes and agree to any sharing arrangement they wanted as it related to the ownership of their mother’s house - or any of her other assets for that matter. Of course, the brother expected that his sister would immediately agree to an equitable sharing arrangement considering his care of their mother over the years and their expectation that he would get a greater share of the estate in a will. Unfortunately, the sister decided that since their mother failed to make a will that it wasn’t her intention for her brother to get more than half her estate so it “wouldn’t be right” for her agree to let her brother have more than half. Apparently, the sister was quite affluent while the brother’s heart was much bigger than his bank account so his sister’s using their mother’s irresponsibility as an excuse to grab more of the estate than she was really entitled to just sent the brother right over the edge and he picked up a stapler and threw it at his sister. Unfortunately, she ducked and Jeff got nailed.

This was just one of the many disasters I witnessed while working for family attorneys. Unfortunately, not all of these things happened to strangers. The mother of my oldest friend - since high school - died suddenly five years ago so I hopped on a plane to go to the funeral and to be there for my friend. Carol was an incredibly accomplished and well liked professional real estate agent who owned her own business - and yet she died without a will and left behind my friend, Chris, and her sister Amber and Cheryl and brother Mike.. Their father had died many years ago and Carol and her four children and 9 grandchildren were a very close and loving family who all got together weekly, spent many weekends together at their mother’s cabin on a lake and Chris and Amber even worked in their mother’s company. Unfortunately, Carol not only died without a will, but she and the two daughters that worked with her failed to put their business arrangement in writing. When going through their mother’s finances, they discovered that she had loaned Mike nearly $100,000 in recent years but she failed to both document the loan or make a will the stipulated that the loan amount would be deducted from Mike’s share of the estate. Because there was no will, Mike was “unjustly enriched” as it was apparent from Carol’s notes that the money was a loan, not a gift and she expected it to be repaid. At the time of Carol’s death, Chris and Amber had real estate sales pending that would have resulted in nearly $200,000 in commissions which should have been split 20% to Carol as owner of the company and 40% each to Chris and Amber. However, because there was nothing in writing and it was her business, the entire $200,000 went into her estate rather than Chris and Amber each getting the $80,000 they should have received.

Cheryl was an honorable person and offered to only take $10,000 from the $200,000 in sale commissions that went to the estate because that is the amount that was the 25% she would have received if her sisters had been paid the commissions they had earned and only $20% of the $200,000 had gone into the estate. Unfortunately, Matt’s business wasn’t doing so well so he wouldn’t agree to limit his share of the $200,000 to $10,000 like Cheryl nor would he agree to have his share of the rest of the estate reduced by the money his mother had loaned him before her death. The net result of Carol’s failure to prepare for her death was the destruction of her family as Chris, Amber and Cheryl haven’t spoken to their brother since all this happened.

No matter your age, it makes no sense for you to fail to prepare for the ONLY certainty of life - which is your eventual death. A will is a gift for those you leave behind so, if you don’t already have one, put it at the top of your “to do” list.

If you live on your own, click here for more on creating your Will…
If you live with someone, click here for more on creating your Wills…

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