A Will is a legal document that ensures your assets are distributed according to your wishes and allows you to appoint trusted individuals to manage your affairs after you pass away.
Your Will (which we call a “Last Will & Testament”), once properly executed, directs how your assets will be distributed to your beneficiaries upon your death, and the probate court (sometimes called a “surrogate court”) will oversee this process.
You will also name trusted decision-makers. For example, your executor will manage your affairs. You can also name guardians and other trusted people, like pet care takers or special trustees for frozen genetic material.
The will is used in the probate process and is therefore a publicly available document.
Types of Wills
Depending on your estate plan, you may use one of two primary types of Wills on the Wealth.com platform:
Last Will & Testament: A standalone document used in the probate process to distribute assets and name executors, guardians for minor children or pets, and special trustees for sensitive materials (like frozen genetic material). Because it is used in probate, it becomes a public record.
Pour-Over Will: Used in a Trust-based Estate Plan, this shorter document acts as a safety net. It directs any assets accidentally left out of your Revocable Trust to "pour over" into the Trust at the time of your death, ensuring all assets are pooled and distributed privately according to the Trust's terms.
What Happens When You Die Without a Will?
Who Decides What Happens to My Estate?
Dying without a Will—or, as it’s legally known, dying “intestate”—takes all the decisions about who gets your money and property out of your hands and puts them in the state’s hands: the probate judge ultimately signs off on all decisions made about your estate.
To help the court, the court will appoint the administrator (or executor) of your estate—typically your spouse or one or more of your adult children. If no one volunteers, a public trustee will be appointed. The administrator will play the most significant role in ensuring all your assets are found, who gets what exactly, and who will take care of your children or pets. Importantly, that administrator will be entitled to reasonable payment from your estate, in addition to any share of your assets that this person might otherwise receive.
The administrator has a lot of power. Having a Will allows you to tell the court who you trust to have this role rather than letting the court decide.
How Is Division of My Estate Decided?
Working with your administrator, the probate court will decide how your property and money should be distributed. While the court wants to follow what you intended (if that can be proven), the court has to follow state intestate succession laws. These laws, and how they handle things like domestic partnerships and marital property, can vary depending upon where you live. They are based on the average person’s final wishes – and all 50 states disagree on what those average wishes might be – at the time the law was made, which might be decades old.
Assets are typically divided among blood relatives based on fixed legal priorities. In general, if you are married with children and die without a Will, in some states your whole estate will go to your spouse and in others it will be divided among your spouse and children.
These laws likely do not address your family situation, with more modern concerns and complexities. They also do not allow you to define your legacy by including beneficiaries outside your bloodline, such as friends or charities. If your estate might be paying taxes, those laws do not attempt to minimize those taxes so that more of your assets will end up with your loves ones.
Probate takes time. This is especially true if you do not leave strong enough proof (like a Will) of what you wanted because it opens the door to disagreements among your family members. When family members disagree, the litigation can sometimes take over a decade to be resolved, and during this time, your assets will largely be tied up.
So, Who Gets What?
In general, if you are married with children and die without a Will, in some states your whole estate will go to your spouse and in others it will be divided among your spouse and children.
If you are single and don’t have kids, next up in the order of priority are your parents, if still living. Then come siblings, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, and more distant relatives. If the court can’t locate any blood relatives, all of your possessions could pass to the state.
If you have a blended family and children from a previous marriage, those children may not receive any of your assets once your spouse passes away. If you live in a state where by default everything goes to your spouse, then your spouse’s heirs will receive your assets at your spouse’s death. Thus, if you want to make sure your spouse can’t override your wishes, you need not only a Will, but a Will that creates a Trust to secure your wishes.
Anyone not related to you with whom you had intended to share in your estate—stepchildren, a best friend’s daughter, or a charity—won’t receive a penny if you have not named them in a legal document.
That may also apply to someone you’ve been in a long-term relationship with but haven’t married, depending on your state. In those states that recognize domestic partnerships or common-law marriages, unmarried partners may be eligible for inheritance similar to a spouse in probate courts. However, in all other states, unmarried couples are technically not relatives, so your partner may not be able to inherit any of your estate or continue using your shared home if you own that home.
What Happens to My Kids?
Being the parent of a minor child is one of the most important reasons to have a Will. In your Will, you can appoint a guardian for children who are minor or have special needs. It is just as essential that you have a Will if you feel strongly about who should take your children as who should not take your children.
The court will strongly take your choice into consideration. Without indicating your choice, the court will evaluate your family members to see who would be most appropriate to serve as guardian.. The court is then left to consider competing arguments among your family members, and the court may have chosen differently if you had a say through your Will.
How do I create a Joint Will?
The platform allows for the creation of individual wills, but not joint wills, as these are typically intended to be drafted on an individual basis. Therefore, couples can each create their own Last Will & Testament under a single account on the platform.