Need advice on making up a will, can/should we do it ourselves?

[hvivona]

Good to know. Thanks. How do you go about filing it with the court?

You'd have to check with you local courthouse on their specific guidlines. Normally all you'd have to do is write a letter asking that it be filed with the courts. You'll send the letter along with the notorized documents to be filed, and a check for the filing fees which is usually not very much. Just call the court's clerk and they will be able to give you the exact details for your state/county.

 

[rockyroad]

My brother-in-law is an attorney who does simple wills at no charge.

He hopes that people will feel comfortable coming back to see him when they need a lawyer.

It is worth checking out if any attorneys in your area offer the same service.

 

[czycropper]

Please check with your state since wills are not usually filed until a party is deceased. You can call your County Surrogate to make sure. It's been awhile since my last Estate class (something like 25 years )

 

[mjantz]

We did a joint will about 6 years ago. We wanted there to be no questions about where our kids were to go & make sure they were taken care of financially. We have a family member who I could see fighting for our kids because of the trust & I didn't want her to have any chace of going into court & convincing a judge that we wanted her to have the kids.
FWIW, we decided to liquidate the trust at 30YO. That way, if either child wants to go to Med School or Law School or get their Ph.D. in whatever, they will have a trust with money so they can do that. My hope would be that they have enough to fully attend college & a nice sum when they turn 30 to put down a nice down payment on a house.

 

[Mom2Ashli]

DH and I still need to go see a Lawyer and get everything done. Thanks for the reminder to get it done.