Eye on Entrepreneur > Last Will & Testament

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One of the most strategic suggestions in your fiscal health is planning properly for your succession. That’s right. Not only do I want you to achieve and enjoy all of your dreams and goals starting today, but I want you to make sure that your loved ones will share in your success tomorrow. You’ll do this by ensuring that the net worth you create isn’t lost if you’re lost to this world.

Maintaining an up-to-date Last Will & Testament is an easy and vital means of protecting the people you love. Personally, it provides me great peace of mind. I like knowing that my financial affairs are in order and my family and friends will reap the rewards of my labor, and also that my estate will not be subject to a government-mandated division in some Byzantine probate court. But it amazes me that an estimated 70% of Americans feel differently – that’s how many die without a valid will. Why? Is it because they don’t like to contemplate their own mortality? Is it because they’re procrastinators? Is it because they don’t choose to invest the time, energy, or money? Or is it because they don’t know the consequences of not taking this simple estate-planning step? I do know, unfortunately, that they leave their survivors to face a complicated, time-consuming, and expensive legal process – not to mention tax ramifications that may have been avoided.

For your information, should you die without a will, a probate court steps in to divide up your estate using legal defaults that distribute your personal property proportionately to surviving relatives – not to your best friends, significant others, or favorite charities. No. The court first pays all unpaid debts to your creditors and your death expenses, then it follows legal guidelines depending on whether you’re married or single or have children or not. If you have no surviving spouse, children, or grandchildren, the estate is automatically divided between other relatives – some of whom you would have never chosen to benefit from your hard-earned treasures. And to make matters worse, if no relatives are found, your estate typically goes to the state or local government.

And for those parents who do have minors or dependent children, and who haven’t named a guardian in your will, the court may appoint someone to be responsible for your kids who, again, may not necessarily be the same person you would have chosen. Now that’s scary.

So I ask you, do you have a signed will tucked safely away in a fireproof safe, safety deposit box, or at your lawyer’s office? Is it current? If not, what not? I want this very important action step placed at the top of your to-do list – right now!

Your Last Will & Testament can be as simple as a single-page document or as elaborate as a Harry Potter manuscript, depending on the size of your estate and your unique preferences. The will should describe your estate (your assets), the individuals or institutions to whom you want to grant specific property and gifts, and any special instructions such as the guardian and care of minor children, funeral arrangements, and the formation of posthumous trusts.

My wife and I review our wills every year about the same time I update our net worth statement. I like to make sure the contents are current and that we both feel exactly the same way we did toward our gift recipients as we felt a year earlier. My wife hates this task. She doesn’t like talking about dying, the thought of dying, or the tragedy of us both dying together. For me, I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, but I view the annual procedure as a great exercise for evaluating and calculating to whom and how much we wish to gift. Time moves on, people age, net worth increases, and situations change, creating the possibility that the terms in your Last Will & Testament become passé.

During one such review I added a little humor to the special instruction portion of my will. I was inspired by a TV newscast showing a zealous Pittsburgh Steelers fan who had died of prostate cancer. His family had fulfilled his final request by arranging and decorating the funeral home similar to his living room on a Sunday game day. His body was positioned in a recliner with his feet crossed and a TV remote clutched in his right hand. He was decked out in Steelers’ black and gold pajamas, slippers, and a robe. And a Steelers blanket was draped over the arm of the chair. There was even a pack of cigarettes and a beer showcased on an end table while a high-definition TV played a continuous loop of Steelers highlights. That man had to be smiling in football heaven.

Well, to demonstrate my passion for pirates and my love of Key West, I inserted a paragraph that described the environment where my final requests will be read. All parties mentioned in my will are to be notified by my executor – which is my wife or my children or my lawyer, in order of survivorship – when and where to gather for the reading in person. The date will be scheduled exactly one month after my death. The time will be precisely 6:00pm EST. And the location will be at our Rum Barrel restaurant/bar in Key West! The place would be readied for a piratical good time with food and drink and dancing galore. And here’s the kicker – everyone in attendance must dress like a pirate! Landlubbers will forfeit their gift and walk the plank home.

My wife thinks I’m nuts. But that’s nothing new. I must admit that adding a little levity to the morose exercise of imagining yourself dead brightens the dark edge. I chuckle to myself at the thought of my family and friends’ reactions when they receive the legal notice of the will reading. If nothing else, our Pirate Soul museum gift shop will have a dramatic spike in merchandise sales!

On a serious note, when drafting your will you should clearly identify yourself as the author of the will and make sure the words “last will and testament” appear on the face of the document. Your will should be typed – not handwritten – and initialed on the bottom of every page. You should sign and date on the last page after the very last paragraph in the presence of two disinterested witnesses (people who are not beneficiaries). And if you decide to create a do-it-yourself will, I strongly suggest that you run it by a local attorney familiar with your specific state laws. Your legal counsel can also ensure your wishes are expressed without any chance of misinterpretation. Because once you’re gone there’s no one to decipher your requests. -- PC