{"id":11162,"date":"2018-11-07T19:56:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T01:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hammerle.com\/?p=11162"},"modified":"2022-10-07T11:25:31","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T16:25:31","slug":"dies-without-a-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hammerle.com\/legaltalk\/wills-trusts\/dies-without-a-will\/","title":{"rendered":"I Don’t Have a Will – So What?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people have a general idea that they \u201cshould\u201d have a Will, but do they really understand what happens if they don\u2019t?<\/h2>\n

One of the biggest difficulties that can arise when someone dies without a Will<\/a> is that the State of Texas decides who gets your \u201cstuff.\u201d\u00a0 This may or may not be where you actually want your property to go.\u00a0 If someone dies married, and there are no children from a previous relationship, and they own no separate property from before they were married, then all their property will go to the surviving spouse.\u00a0 But that\u2019s where the simplicity ends.<\/p>\n

If someone dies with separate property land, say, a home they owned before marriage, then their children get that property.\u00a0 If that home is the family home, how would you feel to have your children now own it?\u00a0 What if the deceased spouse had children from a previous marriage?\u00a0 Your children are now sharing the ownership of the family home with your late spouse\u2019s previous children.\u00a0 And you, the surviving spouse, get to use and enjoy only 1\/3 of that home during your lifetime.<\/p>\n

How do you divide the property and determine the 1\/3 you can use?\u00a0 We let the courts decide.\u00a0 Yikes.<\/h3>\n

What if the deceased spouse\u2019s separate property is not land, but is instead personal property (cars, bank accounts, or other things owned before marriage, or inherited)?\u00a0 According to the State of Texas, the kids get 2\/3.\u00a0 The surviving spouse only gets 1\/3 ownership of things that he or she may have come to rely upon in daily life or may need to pay for living expenses.<\/p>\n

But the fun doesn\u2019t stop there.\u00a0<\/strong> Even if the deceased person owned nothing but community property<\/a>, meaning everything they owned was purchased or earned during marriage, the result still isn\u2019t good if there are kids from a prior relationship.\u00a0 Suddenly, a full half of everything the surviving spouse enjoyed before their spouse\u2019s death is swept out from under them.\u00a0 The survivor owns \u00bd of his or her home, \u00bd of his or her taxable investments, \u00bd of the cars or boats or other vehicles.\u00a0 Who owns the other half?\u00a0 Those kids from the previous marriage.\u00a0 The surviving spouse can\u2019t sell the property if she needs money for living expenses.\u00a0 She can\u2019t get a reverse mortgage or refinance her home without the previous kids.\u00a0 And the surviving spouse and previous children must work together to pay expenses, taxes, insurance, and other costs of ownership.<\/p>\n

Sound fun?<\/strong>\u00a0 Now consider if the previous kids are minors, and the surviving spouse has to coordinate ownership and use of the property with the former spouse of her late husband.<\/p>\n

Sounds complicated, to say the least.<\/h3>\n

Essentially, the Texas legislature has made a Will<\/a> for you. In all the combined years of experience of the estate planners in our office, no client has\u00a0ever asked for anything like Texas\u2019s Wills. \u00a0Make your own Will.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people have a general idea that they \u201cshould\u201d have a Will, but do they really understand what happens if they don\u2019t? One of the biggest difficulties that can arise when someone dies without a Will is that the State of Texas decides who gets your \u201cstuff.\u201d\u00a0 This may or may not be where you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":11760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[685,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-11162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wills-trusts","8":"tag-estate-planning","9":"tag-wills"},"yoast_head":"\nI Don't Have a Will - So What? - Hammerle Morris Law Firm<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of the biggest difficulties that can arise when someone dies without a Will is that the State of Texas decides who gets your \u201cstuff.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hammerle.com\/legaltalk\/wills-trusts\/dies-without-a-will\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Don't Have a Will - So What? 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