By Honest Alf, the Little Guy Lawyer
Progress is being made – now you know what a Will is and what it can do for you – but have you ever actually looked at one of these things?
In olden days, a Will might be one or two pages but now they run 6, 7, 8 or more pages – I tell my friends that “A Will makes good bedtime reading because it will put you to sleep in no time”. So, why all the verbiage?
The part of an ordinary Will where you appoint the Estate Trustee (the “Executor” to many of us) and set out your gift plan usually may take two or three pages – if you get into fancy Wills with a lot of Trusts and Insurance Designations, you’ll have far more pages – because I’m talking about the “little guy/girl” Will that most of us use.
The extra pages beyond that contain a lot of guidelines, directives and powers that are there to help the Estate Trustee do his or her job. I call it “the Tool Box” and I know that not every tool is going to be needed in every estate but it does no harm to have all the “tools” available. Remember what I told you about the Will “speaking as of the day you die”? Good for you – we don’t know when you will die nor do we know what your circumstances will be at death – who knows, you might have won the lottery and have pots of money to deal with at your death - and your Estate Trustee will thank you for furnishing him or her with a full box of tools.
Therefore, don’t worry about all the wording – you are not paying the lawyer by the word (although, as a lawyer, I sometimes wish I was so paid!) and so, I think there is merit in this motto “when in doubt, spell it out!”.