Intro:
Welcome to Modern Family Matters, a podcast devoted to exploring family law topics that matter most to you. Covering a wide range of legal, personal, and family law matters, with expert analysis from skilled attorneys and professional guests, we hope that our podcast provides answers, clarity, and guidance towards a better tomorrow for you and your family. Here's your host, Steve Altishin.
Steve Altishin 0:31
Hi, I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships at Pacific Cascade Legal. And I'm here with our Founding Attorney, Lewis Landerholm, to talk about how to know when it's the right time to make a will. Hey Lewis, how are you doing today?
Lewis Landerholm 0:46
Doing great. How are you, Steve?
Steve Altishin 0:48
I'm doing well. And this is sort of a trick question. Because I think it's really always the right time to start a will. But you hear people talk a lot about, you know, do you have a will? No, I don't have a will, I don't have enough money, I don't have enough property, I don't really just have enough stuff to make a will. Or they say, Well, I'm 22 years old. And I'm just too young to even worry about making a will. But so let's kind of talk about those things because they're really not right. And let's maybe start with the, I don't have enough to make a will. That's not necessarily the only reason you want to make a will, so kind of talk about why, why that idea is you don't have to own a house to make a will, or you don't have to have a giant investment account to make a weill.
Lewis Landerholm 1:47
I mean, I think it's important for everybody to have a will, because you never know when a will will become important. There's a number of, you know, there's a number of things that happen when somebody passes away that then your, your heirs, you're everybody who is trying to figure out, they're in the grieving process number one, and then they're trying to figure out, like, what do we do? What's even there? So a will helps to identify what's there, it also helps to identify who should do what and who gets to kind of take control, otherwise the state's going to get involved in the state's going to have to direct everything and make decisions and put it in the hands of the courts and all of that. So wills aren't an expensive thing to go get prepared. It's important for everybody to, you know, think about having one and actually putting one together, because it basically just cuts out a number of steps in the event of somebody passing away.
Steve Altishin 2:49
So true. I know at least three occasions where, you know, someone younger dies. And like you said, there's all these things you need to do, no matter if they have a little money or a lot, if they own a car, if they, I mean just anything, it's going to trigger stuff that has to be done. And it's just, it's so much more, I don't wanna say relaxing, but it's so much more helpful to at least then have that so that you don't have three different people trying to figure out what to do and how to handle this estate, or just even the affairs of the person. But it's not even just about the property, it seems to me, I mean, when you make a will, part of it, isn't part of it, actually designating the people you want to have making decisions once you're gone? You know, there's all these decisions you may have to have made, even if you don't have a lot of money. And someone has to make and you get to make them not someone else.
Lewis Landerholm 3:55
Yeah, it's all about the intent of the person making the will. Once we're not here, nobody can ask us what did you want to have happen? Who did you want to have? Make a decision about the car but how does that get taken care of a wills are meant to avoid conflict and avoid people, your heirs who if you don't have a well then you go it's called intestate succession where essentially it's just a you're either going if you're younger, you're maybe going up to parents or across the siblings or whatever it is, or if you have children and you have errors then going down but what happens and it gets it gets it can get complicated based off of how the family is set up and with a Will you hope to avoid conflict between the heirs as opposed to an intestate situation where you don't have a will, then maybe somebody can bring a challenge and that challenge then creates a lot of time and money for all of the areas where you can clean that up, make things easier for the poor. People who are left and you can appoint a personal representative to do the work for the estate and all of these things. And it just, it's meant to make things more streamlined and make it so we avoid the fights between the heirs.
Steve Altishin 5:16
Yeah, I probably see as much probate litigation that we kind of see go through is, is because one person is saying, well, that daughter is took this, and it was actually meant for me, I talked to her before I knew she died and all of the seven, but it's not written down anywhere, and it just creates pandemonium and litigation. And it also kind of then seems like, you know, okay, we can say you don't have enough. But even at that there are, I guess, some like things that happen, that you really then start to need, thinking about making? Well, and one of it to me feels like once you have kids, because that brings a whole new realm of sorts of questions to what's going to happen if you die?
Lewis Landerholm 6:07
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, for everybody who are parents, ultimately, the state places the kids with who they will place the kids with. But as a parent, you can give your intent, and you can help guide that placement with your will. So that, again, there's less conflict, try to avoid custody cases that are going on in probate. And for all of you who don't know what probate is, probate is the actual case where the court has to approve the, you know, the how assets where kids are going to go, how we're going to do, all of that is administering the estate, either through a will or a trust, or one trust can help to avoid probate. But that's a different conversation. But wills basically give the judge your intent of when you are alive, so that you hope that then that flows through probate process so that your kids aren't in limbo. And you don't have multiple family members coming together to fight over who they should live with. And all of the above. So it gets pretty complicated. And it's not 100% Perfect, because like if, say, You were divorced, and, and one parent says, I want them to go to buy like grandparents, but the other parents still alive, is going to handle that differently and generally go to the parent who's still alive. So you can't, it's not 100%, where you can direct where the kids go. But it's very important to at least designate your intent and what your wishes are, so that everybody knows that afterwards, and is not confusion. And you know, and people basically trying to figure all this stuff out, because there's a lot.
Steve Altishin 7:56
That kind of leads to I've heard this from people like, well, I want to make a will, I'm almost ready to make will, but I need to decide exactly what I want my stuff to be handled. But if I'm right, can't you change a will? I mean, it seems like getting something down, as soon as possible, it can be changed, can't it?
Lewis Landerholm 8:20
Yeah, wills always change. Different life changes happen, marriage or divorce, new kids, wills can also be drafted. Say you have your first child and you want to draft it. And you can say, that child's name and all subsequent children. So it can look into the future as far as what is happening, whether you know what's going to happen or not. And so there's some things that can be done, where a will can last longer. But when there's big changes, you can just modify your will. And it's not very complicated. It's pretty easy. Actually, people do it all the time. You hear about all the the movies or whatever, where people are changing their will on their deathbed and all this. And yes, that can happen. You know, I think it's less common than what people think it's more common where somebody comes forward with a written document that doesn't follow the will the will statute, basically, oh, I have this piece of, you know, I have this napkin that they left me this well, that's why we have wills, because then they can go back to the well and say, No, it was it was meant to be done this way, and it doesn't cause chaos, essentially.
Steve Altishin 9:27
That just made me think of the word ensures. You can do the napkin, you can do these things. You can, you know, leave a set of what you want to do. But but in the end, there is an actual legal way to do that. And unless you do that legal way, you're not really ensuring anything that's going to happen the way you want it. So the process of making a will, well, it has to be legal. I mean, it's not that complex, isn't it?
Lewis Landerholm 9:56
No, it's very easy. I mean, essentially the main part of it is is just a witnessing part so that that way you have the independent witnesses. Outside of that, it's very easy. It's just, you know, basically putting in exactly what your intent what your wishes are. And then you have the the witnesses who can attest to the signature. And that's about it, it's, it's pretty straightforward. Obviously, the more complex the estate, the more complex the will is. But outside of that, the actual process is very straightforward.
Steve Altishin 10:30
And just before we go, we're just about running out of time. If someone you says, Okay, I'm gonna make a will, is there anything else I should consider? What else do I need anything at the time I make? Well, and the only thing that kind of comes to mind, to me, at least the main thing is, you know, you can, you can also sort of protect yourself, things like powers of attorney maybe, or things like that. So you can you can package something together, that's not super expensive. But it can kind of protect you, from the time you make it on.
Lewis Landerholm 11:04
Yeah, there's also advanced directives. So kind of the three that normally kind of go together are a will, Power of Attorney Advanced Directive. The Advanced Directive tells people what you want to do medically in the event that you're incapacitated and can't tell your wishes. Again, it's all about what is your intent when you are incapacitated, or when you are dead, or you can't verbalize your intent. And so that's the point of all of these things, power of attorneys also give control and power to somebody else to run effects or to be able to access the bank account or be able to make a decision financially or, or in a different realm. And so all of those can be sort of thought through and figured out so that people aren't left guessing, and trying to operate on their with their own wishes and not yours.
Steve Altishin 11:56
Final question. The person who comes in and says, Well, I just have these things that that I don't know what I should say about it, or I don't know if I can give it here, or I don't know, how to make this happen. You know, I don't know how to actually write the words down, or what should I think about? We can help them, can't we, with a consultation just even before they write a will?
Lewis Landerholm 12:22
Yeah, I mean, that's the point of the process. The will process goes through that, to think through, what do you have? How do you want to divide it? Where do you want, you know, what do you want to include? What don't you want to include? Who's getting what so all of that is part of the process of organizing the estate, organizing your thoughts so that you can then can get drafted so that everybody understands what you intended.
Steve Altishin 12:48
I love that. So thank you, Louis, for sitting down and talking to us today about how to know when it's time to make a will. And thank you everyone else today for joining us. If anyone has any further questions, please feel free to contact us. Get connected with us. And until next time, stay safe, stay happy and be well.
Outro:
This has been Modern Family Matters, a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Pacific Cascade Legal, serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our websites at pacificcascadelegal.com or pacificcascadefamilylaw.com. You can also call our headquarters at (503) 227-0200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys. Modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow and offering legal solutions important to the modern family.
