BETA - Who creates my will? What should be contained in it?

Who creates my will? What should be contained in it? Wills can be changed. Again, it is just like your powers of attorneys. With a new will, it revokes all prior wills. Now, one thing I didn't mention about even the powers of attorney, but it applies as well as a will, you have to be of sound mind. You have to have the capacity to create these documents, a will. So as a lawyer, I have to evaluate. I get a lot of calls from adult children. My mom's 80 now and she doesn't have a will. And they proceed to tell me all the things that she wants in her will. And I listen and I say, okay, I need to talk to mom. And I have to talk to mom because I have to assess Does mom know that she's creating a will? Is mom, you know, cognitively able to do it? Does mom know what this all means? Okay, so let's say she does. So then I say to mom, well, I have a form and most lawyers have a, it's called a questionnaire. Mine is just called an estate planning questionnaire and I have part of the will as part of it. So mom gets to tell me her children, her, does she have a spouse, like full names, ages, where they live? That's how most attorneys do it because you can spend a lot of time on the phone trying to get this information. So if I get a call about a new potential new client, I send that questionnaire and I let them keep it and they usually keep it a couple of weeks, then they send it back. But in that, again, it's naming all of your children. Are there any children who are pre-deceased? Because that matters in the state of Ohio because of the laws. Because if they're grandchildren, and depending on what you say in your will, if you die, your grandchildren could take their parents part if one of your children pre-deceased you. So it's all of that kind of information. And in that questionnaire, it also asks about all the assets and how are they titled? Is the house joint and survivorship or not? Is the bank account POD or TOD? Do you have life insurance? Do you have annuity? All of those things. Okay. So that's kind of the beginning of the process. And then I call them to go over it, make sure I know, and then I start drafting the will. After that, they have to come in to me to sign it. In Ohio, it is not notarized. Wills in Ohio have to have two witnesses who are not related and who will not stand to benefit from this person's death. Okay? So they have to be witnessed in Ohio. Other states, I know that it's different. Some states allow your wills to be notarized. So the will is executed, meaning I'm sitting in front of you. You know what is going on. We go over the provisions in the will. Yes, this is what I want. And then I ask my clients, do you want to keep your original or do you want me to? Most clients want theirs, which is good. And I just say to them, okay, I will keep a copy. You will be given the original. And I always say, where are you going to keep this? And I get all kinds of answers. The answer I don't get enough for me is in the safe deposit box. I'm a safe deposit box fan. I just think that's where your documents go. But especially older people, sometimes they'll say, I have my safe at home. Then I'll ask, is it fireproof? Is it locked? Who has the key? Like all of those questions that just make sense. Because if it's not fireproof and there's a fire, okay, there, those documents are gone. If it's locked and no one has the key and you forgot where you put it, that's not helpful either. So most of my clients say, oh, my daughter that I named as executor, she knows where my key is and she knows where my documents are. Some people will say, should I give a copy of my documents to that daughter? I'm not a fan of a lot of copies of your documents being out there. I'm just not. So I usually say, you don't have to do that. Just make sure someone knows where everything is. So that's my answer to where they're kept and where I advise people to keep them. But people don't always do that. Yeah, that's a problem. That is a procedure in probate court in my counties that we have to then, well then, remember I have the copies, but then we have to almost authenticate the copies and that's a whole process. So it just makes sense to let's find that original will.