Estate Planning for the Never Married
Married couples and parents usually have an easy time determining who will inherit their assets. An increasing number of Americans are faced with the situation of passing away without either spouses or children in place. In an article published last year, the New York Times reported that it is wiser for unmarried individuals to make the difficult choice of deciding to whom their estates will go rather than allowing them to go to distant relatives that they barely know. According to the Pew Research Center, statistics reveal that 20% of adults age 25 and older in 2012 had never married, which is an increase from 9% in 1960. Meanwhile, the number of women age 40 to 44 who have no children has increased from 10 % in 1976 to 15% in 2014. This article will discuss some essential advice for unmarried individuals during estate planning:
- Explain Your Decisions: To prevent adverse legal actions and to ensure that your exact plans are carried out, it is wise and helpful to provide an explanation of your decisions. This type of overly thorough explanation is particularly helpful in cases where there is an unequal distribution of assets to persons with reasonably similar relationships to the testator of a will.
- Need: Need is a potential good factor to decide how much to give a beneficiary.
- Regularly Review Your Estate Plan: Individuals who are not married and do not have children should review estate plans at regular intervals to identify areas in which changes to the estate plan are desired. They might include third parties that they were close to at one time but lose touch with over time. In other situations, the financial circumstances of a beneficiary might change, which could signify a need to rewrite an estate plan so that individuals who are in greater need are awarded greater amounts.
- Understand the Decisions Often Made By Others in Similar Situations: In similar situations, individuals who pass away at younger ages tend to select longtime companions, nieces and nephews, siblings, parents, and friends as beneficiaries. Older individuals who pass away in similar situations tend to select charities.
- Use Clear and Concise Terms: Individuals without spouses or children must be definitive and clear about who should receive what parts of their estates. When there is not a clearly specified order, the state usually makes strict decisions regarding genealogical rules of inheritance. These types of decisions also tend to take an extended amount of time.
If you are unmarried, crafting an estate plan can be a difficult exercise, so do not hesitate to contact a knowledgeable and seasoned California estate planning lawyer today.