Don’t wait until it’s too late to make your will. And this also goes for updating your will. Sure, life can get really busy, making it easy to put things off. And I think it’s somewhat human to be in at least partial denial to the fact that one day every single one of us shall pass. But as they say, none of us gets out of here alive. And if you don’t have your estate planning affairs in order when that day comes, then it’s a very big possibility that your assets won’t go to the people you would have wanted them to go to.

Image by Benjamin Balazs from Pixabay

One time I started working with an elderly lady who wanted to make some major changes to her will. She had recently gotten very sick, and the doctors told her she didn’t have much longer to live. She already had a will, but it was quite old and didn’t reflect her current wishes for where her assets should go. For years she knew she wanted to make some major changes to her will, but previously she just never seemed to get around to it.

Well, over the course of a few days we worked on the details of what her new will should say, and I was prepared to deliver the will to her to get it notarized. Unfortunately she passed away before we got it done. Now the biggest asset in her estate, her home, is going to a member of her family that she no longer wanted to give it to. And of course this means that the family member she DID want to give it to will not get it. In fact this other person who had been helping her a lot in recent years as she faced health problems isn’t going to get anything at all, because the old will is still in place. It’s a very sad situation that could have been prevented with a simple new will.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to make or update your will.