Wills and Probate in Arkansas

              It’s never too early to try to get a plan for an estate. If there is one lesson that families have learned, it is that a difficult time can be made even harder by a lack of planning. It can also prove to be more expensive to not have a plan. Accordingly, here are some basic issues in the nuts and bolts of why it is not just helpful but also even cheaper to hire an attorney than to fail to hire one. 

            Sometimes the default way assets are handled when somebody passes away turns out to be ok, but far more often the default way is like a trap for the unwary and does not accomplish what a person wants. In addition, some asset issues are far better and cheaper to handle than a full intestate probate case that might be needed for somebody who dies without a will. Talking to an attorney about your options and preparing a will and addressing other asset issues (beneficiaries of retirement accounts, etc) can save money and trouble for your family after you are gone. 

            What are some concrete examples? Well, if somebody had a relative with special needs or who is a minor, it is best to have a specific provision for that. If one relative got more help than the others while a person was alive the will can be used to balance that out. Also, a method to ensure that funds are held in trust for a minor would be better than leaving it up to perhaps an impersonal bank. There are many other possible things that could go wrong in an absence of planning. Most people would like to not overly burden their relatives already dealing with grief with a chaotic distribution of assets that takes longer and costs more than it could. Laws are passed mainly because somebody with money pushed the issue through their lobbyists and that tends to make the default choices the worst choices because the offerings beyond the default are highly valuable even for a family that isn’t made of millionaires. While wealthy people die without wills sometimes, usually they have planned ahead to take advantage of laws and those laws can work for non-wealthy people also. Caring for your family while alive makes a big difference, and caring for and planning how you leave the world can also make a big difference to your family to reduce the inevitable pain of that event.