Many people want to know what a living will is and how to write a living will. A Living Will may also be called a health care directive.

It is a document that allows you to choose who you want to make health care decisions for you if you are incapacitated and cannot make the choices yourself. It varies by state but this person is most often called your health care agent.

In most states, this document also allows you to make health care statements and how to write a living will depends on these laws.

Usually these health care statements are split into two categories.

Your beliefs; and

Your desires for treatment or treatment withheld based on the circumstances.

Here are some common topics you can write about for beliefs.

• Goals for my health care:
• Fears about my health care:
• Spiritual or religious beliefs and traditions
• Beliefs about when life would be no longer worth living:
• Thoughts about how my medical condition might affect my family:

Here are the most common topics for health care desires.

• If I had a reasonable chance of recovery, and were temporarily unable to decide or speak for myself, I would want:
• If I were dying and unable to decide or speak for myself, I would want:
• If I were permanently unconscious and unable to decide or speak for myself, I would want:
• If I were completely dependent on others for my care and unable to decide or speak for myself, I would want:
• In all circumstances, my doctors will try to keep me comfortable and reduce my pain. This is how I feel about pain relief if it would affect my alertness or if it could shorten my life:
• Who I would like to be my doctor:
• Where I would like to live to receive health care:
• Where I would like to die and other wishes I have about dying:
• My wishes about donating parts of my body when I die:
• My wishes about what happens to my body when I die (cremation, burial):

These are the basics on how to write a living will. To make it legal, you will need to sign it either in front of witnesses, have it notarized or possibly both. Each state has specific requirements as to whether you signature needs to be witnessed and or notarized. Please check with your state statutes or an attorney licensed in your state for this detail.

I strongly recommend having a Living Will along with your last Will and Testament. Both can be drafted without an attorney if you conduct a little research.

Robert Olson is the lead attorney at DIY Lawyer [http://www.diylawyer.net/Drafting-Wills-E-Course.html]. A website dedicated to helping people do their own legal work including writing your last will and testament. We offer a FREE 7 day e-course that teaches you how to create a will. Each day you learn about a new section that should be included. You can sign up at DIY Lawyer [http://www.diylawyer.net/Drafting-Wills-E-Course.html].

Author: Robert Olson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

How to write your own will is a very good question.  Before people ask me this question though, I get asked should I write my own will.  From my fifteen years of experience as an estate planning attorney and even though it may take clients away, I generally say you can write your own will if you meet certain guidelines.  If you do fall within these guidelines, then you can proceed to learn how to write your own will.

These guidelines are:

• You own property in only one state.  Owning property in more than one state does not prevent you from writing your own will, you just need to know that it will trigger a probate in each state.  It may be advantageous from a post death cost perspective, both dollars and time, to talk with an attorney to determine if there is a better way than using a will for your estate planning tool.
• Your total estate value is under $2,000,000.00 including life insurance death benefit proceeds.  This number is the federal estate tax threshold.  It is set to increase to $3,500,000.00 on January 1, 2009.  If your estate is greater than this you will need to incorporate strategies to minimize or eliminate this tax, unless you like paying taxes.  I suggest you talk with an attorney because this tax rate can be as high as 45%.
• You are willing to put in a little time learning what goes into a good will.  I recommend this because I do not think using software or an internet based will is a good route to go because of the limited capabilities of these products and the fact that you probably will not understand the finished product.

Your alternative to writing your own will is to pay an attorney hundreds and thousands of dollars.  To learn how to write your own will, look for free information on the internet.  Caveat: Make sure this information comes from an attorney with experience.

Author: Robert Olson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

If you are reading this, you want to know how to write a Will – a Last Will And Testament. It is actually simple. To write your own Last Will And Testament you have two choices: start from scratch or use a Last Will And Testament form.

Writing a Will from scratch is easy because there is not any required format. Your Will can be written like a letter or a simple statement. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that in the letter or statement you clearly state that you want it to be effective upon your death and that it meets certain legal requirements, especially that you sign it in front of witnesses.

Writing a Will using a Last Will And Testament form is also very easy. You can obtain a Last Will And Testament form from the internet or from an office supply store. Many of these Will forms are “fill-in-the-blank” type of forms and, usually, it is clear what should go in each blank.

On the internet, you can find sites which say that they will prepare a “custom” Last Will And Testament for you. Don’t be fooled. These are simply “merge” programs where they take your answers to question and merge the answers into a form and then you print out the completed form. There is nothing “custom” about them. The only way to have a custom made Last Will And Testament is to go to a Lawyer.

Finally, knowing how to write a Will is not as important as knowing that some of your property may not be covered by your Last Will And Testament. Every state has laws which may disallow or change your wishes as expressed in your Last Will And Testament. For example, you may want your money that is in a joint bank account to go to someone other than the joint account holder, but state law may give it to the joint account holder anyway.

The above information is general information only. For specific questions or clarification, contact a lawyer licensed in your state.

http://WWW.LastWillAndTestamentSite.com is the home for Will information, FREE Last Will And Testament EBook, and Last Will And Testament Forms. Copyright 2007 LastWillAndTestamentSite.com.

Author: Stephen Best
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

How to make a Will? Well, that question triggers off both technical and practical issues to consider. Here, we look at some of the practicalities to consider. These include the types of things that you should give careful thought to whether you are making your Will yourself or having it made professionally.

When we think about how to make our Will the chief thought is that we are making this Will because it is essential for each of us to get things in order for our loved ones for when we pass on. The easiest way is to look at why you should have a Will and what briefly look at what happens if you do not have one. These are called the intestacy rules.

An executor will carry out your wishes as stated in your Will. He or she will have to gather together all our documentation and carry out all of the legal requirements needed to start “administering” your Will. This simply means carrying out the instructions in the Will.

It is important to consider who you want as your Executor. Thinking of using a bank or a solicitor? That is quite a natural thought but experience shows that they can be very expensive and not necessarily the speediest way of getting things done. Administering a Will is really not difficult and you can obtain a great deal of help from the Probate Office who you will find most efficient and understanding.

You can quite simply choose a family member to be the executor and they should be able to carry out this function for you quickly and easily. Make sure that you ask them first as it might come as a surprise later on if you do not.

You should also choose someone who is not only willing to carry out this task but who is likely to be alive when they are needed and who is also unlikely to move away before then. An Executor can also be a Beneficiary and you can appoint more than one Executor to work together and share the load, if you wish.

Apart from how to make a Will you should also consider when to make one. First of all, you should make a Will right now if you do not have one, and then revisit it regularly. Review it every five years or so, and whenever circumstances change. Events that trigger a review include when you get married, have children or get divorced. It is also important to know that marriage invalidates any Will made before marriage.

You can decide who should benefit following your demise and this is a key part of how to make a Will. You are said to have died “intestate” if you die with out making a Will. Intestacy rules will then apply to you situation and the loved ones that you believed would receive your assets may receive little or nothing.

If you have young children, you can appoint “guardians” who will be responsible for your children’s care and welfare should neither parent be alive. The Courts or Authorities will choose someone for you if you do not leave a Will, and that well might not be someone you would have chosen yourself.

You should name a person or people that you personally know and trust to look after the assets that you have left to your children until the children become old enough to take responsibility themselves.

Inheritance tax is much less of a problem for many people but there are still plenty of people around who could benefit a great deal by organising their Will properly.

There could well be some opportunities to do some tax planning to reduce Inheritance tax, or how you leave things for others. Take care about leaving things directly to grandchildren to skip a generation. Cases have arisen where a subsequent divorce has split that asset and it has left the family! You can get around this issue by the use of a Trust.

This is a brief introduction on how to make a Will. There are quite a few more things to think about and the best thing to do is start a list and be organised for when you come to get your Will written.

Find more information about making a Will at http://www-wills.co.uk

Make your UK Will cheaper than using a solicitor at Making a Will

Author: John Francis Higgins
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

You will need to learn how to probate a will if a loved one dies with property in their name alone and no beneficiary designation attached. You need to know how to probate a will because their estate will go through probate. Probate is a court procedure designed to follow the directions in the Will with respect to who handles the estate and who receives the property. There needs to be a probate because the only person who could legally sign to transfer the assets is deceased.

The probate consists of the following steps.

• Initiate the probate – The executor named in the Will completes an application if the probate is informal or petition if it will be formal. Whether you will be conducting a formal or informal probate depends on the facts and circumstances of your individual case. Your attorney will give you the advice on which to select.
• Pay Valid Debts and Taxes – Unfortunately you cannot get out of your debts and taxes by dying. They need to be paid before any property can be distributed to your beneficiaries.
• File the Required Court Forms including an inventory of assets owned by the decedent at their death. You also will file a final accounting. The final accounting is the record of everything that happened from the date of death until the final distribution. As an attorney, I have found this to be the most difficult aspect of the probate. You will need to make sure it balances to the penny as it will be reviewed by the court and you may not be allowed to close the probate until it does.
• Divide and distribute the assets per the direction of the Will.

This may sound like an easy process but based on my fifteen years as an attorney, it is not. Most probates take over a year to complete and end up costing the estate thousands and thousands of dollars in attorney fees. You could try to do the probate without an attorney but there is very little detailed guidance on how to probate a will and most people would find this a difficult and frustrating process.

Now that you know how to probate a will and all that goes into the process, you may want to consider avoiding it by using a Living Trust instead of the Will as your estate planning document. I suggest you research living trusts on the internet to learn the pros and cons.

To assist you we offer an internet e-course on our website that teaches you all you need to know about the living trust.

Robert Olson is the lead attorney at DIY Lawyer [http://www.diylawyer.net]. A website dedicated to helping people do their own legal work including drafting a Living Trust. They offer an e-book with a money back guarantee titled the Living Trust Annotated. This book teaches you to draft your own Living Trust for a fraction of what you would pay an attorney. With the purchase of the e-book you also receive a free half hour phone consultation with a DIY Lawyer to answer your questions about the book. You can read about it at the DIY Lawyer website. You can also sign up for their Free Living Trust E-Course [http://www.diylawyer.net/Living-Trust-E-Course.html].

Author: Robert Olson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com