Question on wills

[Happily Retired 2019]

I have a will from many years ago when my children were young. Assets were divided evenly upon our death. Since that time my daughter has passed away. If I do not update my will, does her husband or my grandchild automatically receive what my daughter was to inherit-or does everything automatically go to my son?

 

[Sunset]

I'm not a lawyer.

Depends upon the wording of your Will, you need to look at it to see what it says.

If you have the term per stirpes in properly it will give the daughters portion to her children (but not husband).

Here is a site that defines it and their example is like your situation:

Per Stirpes Definition in Estate Planning | Trust & Will

Per stirpes is a legal term that describes how your assets are divided and distributed. Read on to learn how you can use per stirpes in your Estate Plan.

trustandwill.com

 

[RunningBum]

I'm not a lawyer either. I think Sunset has it right.

But if there is no "per stirpes" designation in the will, I believe the the daughter's portion is distributed evenly to the other beneficiaries, not to her children or husband.

 

[OldShooter]

Why would you not update a will "from many years ago?"

 

[brett]

We have updated our respective will twice in the past 15 or so years. One was a complete re-write.

On both occasions we found that the advice and/or comments from friends etc., though well meaning, was either incorrect or was based on nuances/situations that simply did not apply to us.

In one jurisdiction the wills and estate legislation had been changed over the years. We subsequently moved to another jusidiction and found that the legislation was slightly different.

From our perspective the relative small cost of having our respective wills, POA's, etc updated professionally has been money well spent.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

I agree with updating and/or rewriting it periodically is a good thing. I am age 62 and I've now had 3 wills. One in Texas many, many years ago and two in Pennsylvania where I currently live. When I went into my attorney to tell him I wanted to re-write my will very differently from my current one, he told me that he recommended doing this at least every 10 years just to make sure that the will is done with current legal standards and wording. He wasn't doing this as a sales pitch to me because I am the one who came in and told him I wanted a new will. I was removing multiple beneficiaries and provisions related to my parents. He had written my previous will. The one he created in 2022 was quite different in structure than the one he wrote in 2015, even for the basic boilerplate content.

It's not that the older document will considered invalid, but the recommended words included evolve over time in order to better protect the intentions of the will given changes in legal matters.

 

[MarieIG]

To answer OP, that depends upon the directives as set out in the will in conjunction with state law.