By Tim Barkley. August 2025.
Q: What happens if I don’t write a will?
A: Your “estate” – everything you own that has no living joint owner or beneficiary – will be administered through “probate” and distributed under state “intestacy” statutes. Sometimes that’s OK, but sometimes that’s a disaster. Distribution would be as follows:
To your spouse (even if you’ve been separated for years) or domestic partner (if you’ve registered the partnership), and maybe a percentage to your children, or, if none,
To your children or their “issue” (your grandchildren or more remote descendants), or, if none,
To your parents or the survivor of them, or, if both are deceased, to their descendants (your siblings, or nieces and nephews), or, if none,
To your grandparents (1/2 to each pair) or the survivor of each pair, or, if both of one pair is deceased, to their descendants (your aunts and uncles, or cousins), or, if none, all to the other pair or the one of them who is living, or to their descendants; or, if none,
To your stepchildren, or, if any of them predeceased you, to their descendants (their children or grandchildren).
To the Maryland Department of Health if you were a recipient of long-term care benefits under Maryland Medical Assistance, or, if not, to the Board of Education for the county of your residence.
If you don’t make a plan, your plans can come unraveled when it’s too late to do anything about it.
Q: Why is there so much legalese in my power of attorney? Why can’t it be written in plain English?
A: Your POA (and your will, for that matter, and all legal documents) have to stand up if they are challenged in Court or by the corporate office of the bank or broker who is expected to allow someone else to access your money. They are technical documents. They’re not meant to be informal light reading. Every judge and every lawyer in every legal department knows what the technical language (“legalese”) means; no one knows what the “plain English” means. And, for what it’s worth, legalese was once plain English that just hasn’t been changed because we’ve all agreed on what it means. This author once tried to simplify documents by rewriting them in “plain English,” and they all got about 25% longer. The term for distributing your child’s share to his or her children is two Latin words, “per stirpes”; the plain English equivalent is a paragraph long.
Q: Why is my power of attorney so long?
A: Your POA has to cover everything you might need someone to do for you. In Maryland, every POA is limited to its express terms; there are no implied powers. Because we can’t know everything that someone might need, we include everything we can think of in your power of attorney.
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Attorney Tim Barkley
The Tim Barkley Law Offices
One Park Avenue
P.O. Box 1136
Mount Airy
Maryland 21771
(301) 829-3778
Wills & Trusts | Estate Planning | Probates & Estates
Elder Law | Real Estate | Business Planning