Many busy working adults across Montana delay creating an important legal will, assuming they have plenty of time remaining or that their personal assets are too modest to matter much in the end. Understanding fully what a will actually accomplishes helps a person see clearly why this document deserves attention regardless of age or accumulated wealth.
A Will Names Who Inherits Your Property
Without a properly and carefully drafted legal will document in place, Montana’s own intestate succession laws decide who receives your property rather than you deciding for yourself and your family. A Billings wills lawyer always carefully drafts a comprehensive legal will document that carefully reflects a person’s actual and specific personal wishes for their spouse, children, and any other specifically intended beneficiaries under Montana law.
Choosing a Personal Representative Matters Considerably
A properly and carefully drafted legal will document also always lets you formally name the specific person responsible for administering your entire estate, someone you deeply and completely trust to handle the process honestly and efficiently throughout. Common qualities and important personal characteristics worth considering when choosing this particular person include:
- Strong and well demonstrated personal organizational skills combined with proven comfort handling important financial and legal paperwork independently and quite efficiently
- Genuine willingness and actual daily personal availability to serve consistently and reliably during an already difficult and quite stressful family period
- Genuine trustworthiness among various family members who may otherwise disagree strongly about important estate decisions and difficult family matters
- Geographic proximity, though this particular personal factor generally matters considerably less overall than proven reliability and demonstrated ongoing family trustworthiness
Naming a trusted and reliable alternate secondary personal representative also always helps considerably and quite meaningfully if the first chosen person becomes unable or unwilling to serve when needed most during the process.
A Will Can Address Guardianship for Minor Children
Parents of minor children can always use a properly and carefully drafted legal will to formally nominate a trusted personal guardian, providing important legal direction a court would otherwise have to determine entirely without any input from the family involved in the matter. A Billings wills lawyer always helps parents think through this particular important legal decision very carefully, since it represents one of the most consequential legal choices contained in the entire estate planning document.
What Happens to a Will Over Time
Life circumstances often and quite frequently change considerably and quite unexpectedly over time, and a legal will drafted many years earlier may no longer reflect a person’s current wishes after a marriage, divorce, birth, or significant change in assets or family structure. Reviewing an existing will periodically and quite thoughtfully still helps confirm it accomplishes exactly what a person actually intends for their loved ones and family members going forward.
A Will Cannot Avoid Probate on Its Own
A properly and carefully drafted legal will document does not fully avoid probate entirely on its own, though it does direct precisely how the entire probate process ultimately distributes assets among heirs and beneficiaries. Additional legal estate planning tools like carefully and properly drafted transfer on death deeds can work effectively and quite efficiently alongside a will to address specific personal assets entirely outside the standard probate process.
Getting Started With a Will in Billings
Understanding fully and quite clearly what an important legal will document actually accomplishes helps a person see clearly why this important document deserves attention now rather than putting it off until later on. Silverman Law Office, PLLC has proudly and consistently helped many Billings area residents carefully create important legal wills for many years, handling matters carefully at every single stage of the process. If you have not yet created an important legal will of your own, reach out today to discuss your specific options and what steps might make sense for your family and future.
