We Don’t Have Much…Why Do We Need a Will?

“We’re married with young children. We have a house, a couple of cars, and a little bit of money in the bank. But we really don’t have much. Do we actually need wills?”

It is easy to think of a will as something you need once you are older or have accumulated significant wealth. But for young parents, some of the most important reasons to have a will have very little to do with how much money you have.

In fact, if you have minor children, who will care for them may be far more important than who gets your money.

“Won’t Everything Just Go to My Spouse?”

This is one of the biggest misconceptions we hear. If you die without a will in Georgia, you do not get to decide how your probate estate is distributed. Georgia law decides for you. And if you are married with children, everything does not necessarily go to your spouse.

Under Georgia’s intestacy laws, a surviving spouse shares the intestate estate with the deceased spouse’s children. The surviving spouse is entitled to at least one-third. So, if you are married with two children and die without a will, your surviving spouse and your two children would generally each receive one-third of your intestate estate.

That can be very different from what many young couples actually want:

“If I die, I want everything to go to my spouse. If we both die, then I want everything to go to our children.”

If that is your plan, don’t assume the law will create it for you. You need to set up a will to make sure you get what you want.

But What If Something Happens to Both of You?

If something tragically happens to you and your spouse at the same time, or even just after the survivor of you passes, you need to have a plan in place. For parents of young children, this may be the most important question your will answers.

Who do you want to raise your children if you and your spouse are both gone?

Most parents have an answer. Or at least have an idea of who they would trust to raise their children. Maybe you would choose your brother and sister-in-law. Maybe you have one sibling who shares your values and parenting style and another whom you love dearly, but would never choose to raise your children. Maybe your parents. But maybe they are getting to an age where that wouldn’t be ideal. You know these things about your personal and family dynamics, the courts do not.

But does anyone else legally know that?

If you have not made a guardian nomination in your will and both parents die, there isn’t a document sitting there that simply answers the question, “This is who Mom and Dad chose to raise us.” Instead, a guardian may need to be appointed through the probate court process. Georgia law provides procedures for the appointment of guardians for minors, and the court’s focus is ultimately on the child’s best interests. That means a decision you could have addressed in your estate plan is now a decision that has to be addressed after your death. And think about the timing. Your children have just lost their parents. Your family is grieving. Someone now has to determine who will step forward to care for the children and take the legal steps necessary to establish guardianship. If family members disagree about who that should be, an already painful situation can become even more difficult. Maybe your sister believes you would have chosen her. Maybe your parents believe the children should live with them. Maybe your spouse’s family believes you would have wanted the children to remain closer to them.

Everyone may genuinely believe they are doing what you would have wanted, but you are no longer there to tell them. It just leaves too much room for things to get messy, but even worse, for your children to be raised by someone you would’ve never chosen.

That is the part many young parents don’t think about when they say, “Our families know what we would want.” Maybe they do. But when it comes to something as important as who raises your children, why leave your wishes to be up for interpretation? Maybe you told one of your friends they would be your children’s guardian because they told you that you would be theirs, and you just didn’t want the conversation to be awkward. Maybe your friend imposed her wishes to be the guardian on you and you agreed but since have watched them develop a substance abuse problem. Maybe your mother-in-law assumes she would raise them since her entire life has revolved around them. Maybe you just simply didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.

This Is One of the Easiest Problems to Prevent

The good news is that this does not have to be complicated. A properly prepared will allows you to nominate the person you want to serve as guardian for your minor children. You can also name a backup guardian to this person. You can even specify, for example, that if you name a married couple but they get divorced, then you would like the child/children to go with a certain one of them, or you would like the guardianship to pass to the backup you named.

You get to sit down now, while no crisis is occurring, and make that decision thoughtfully. You can talk about it with your spouse. You can decide together who you trust. You can name the person you believe is best suited to step into your shoes if the unthinkable happens. And then you can put it in writing. A will cannot prevent something terrible from happening. But it can prevent your family from having to guess about one of the most important decisions you could make for your children.

“But We Really Don’t Have Much.”

You may have more than you think. A home. Equity in that home. Bank accounts. Vehicles. Personal property. Retirement accounts. Life insurance. Maybe an ownership interest in a business. Some of those assets may pass outside of your will depending on how they are owned or whether a beneficiary has been designated. But estate planning isn’t just about creating a list of who gets what. For parents, it is also an opportunity to decide who should manage an inheritance for your children and how those assets should be handled while your children are young. And again, the amount isn’t really the point. You don’t need a multimillion-dollar estate to care about who will raise your children, who will handle what you leave behind, and whether your spouse and children will be provided for in the way you intended.

A Will Isn’t Just for the Wealthy

Estate planning is easy to put off.

“We’ll do it after we buy a house.”

“We’ll do it when we have more money.”

“We’ll do it when we’re older.”

But if you have young children, you already have one of the most important reasons to have a will. You may not feel like you have much. But you have people who depend on you. A will lets you decide who should receive your property, who should be responsible for handling your estate, and, most importantly for many young parents, who you want to care for your children if you are no longer here to do it yourself. Those are decisions that are relatively simple to make today. They can become much more complicated if you leave them for someone else to make tomorrow.