A popular misconception among people about estate planning is the notion that because that person does not have a large house they do not have an estate. It is important that a person does not need vast amounts of wealth to have an estate. The “estate” is comprised of a person’s personal and real property. To control who gets this property a person might want to consider drafting a will. If a person chooses to not draft a will, then the distribution of the property will be subject to the intestacy laws of the state in which that person resides. Now, there are online databases that can show clients how their property will be divided according to the intestacy laws. Here is that website. This could be a valuable asset in assessing whether a person needs to draft a will to change the distribution of property.
See Deborah L. Jacobs, I Don’t Have An Estate, Why Do I Need An Estate Plan?, Forbes, June 26, 2012.
Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.
