Five Reasons to Make a Will
- Texas law makes it much more economical to probate a simple will than many other states. You can provide in the will for independent administration so that your heirs can easily take the actions to carry out your wishes. Without a will, your heirs will have to file for an heirship proceeding, costing two to three times as much as an average probate of a will and sometimes going on in Court for many months.
- Without a will, the State of Texas through the Probate Code decides for you how your money and property will be divided. Sometimes this will be completely different to what you would have wanted or would have expressed in a will, if you had made one.
- Heirship proceedings are much more complicated and expensive. The Court appoints an attorney to investigate who are all the heirs and family history. Your heirs have no control over the appointment of that attorney or how much that attorney will charge the estate. Also, a bond must be secured from a bonding company which means a cash deposit, again quite expensive.
- Heirship proceedings are less private. An inventory must be filed with the court listing every bank and brokerage account and their values, as well as all of your vehicles and pieces of real estate. This becomes public information. Heirs to a will can agree not to publish an inventory but just share the informaiton between themselves.
- You can state in a will your wishes as to both your funeral and burial arrangements.
