By Tim Barkley. September 2025. It’s sad when folks trying to do the right thing mess up and hurt the ones they love the most. Take, for example, the will that left everything “to my children, or their heirs, per stirpes.” (Per stirpes is the term for distributing a...
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,...
October 2024 So you have some free time to do some research on the Internet to find out how to draft your own will. There are too many forms online for you to pay a lawyer. Lawyers are just so 1990s! You find a site that promises a document that will be effective “in...
August 2024. Q: My mother just died. Do I need to do probate? A: If there was anything just in her name, with no living joint owner or beneficiary, then we have something that nobody owns. Nobody can take money out of a bank account that nobody owns; nobody can sell a...
May 2024. The vacation is all planned, tickets bought, pet sitters engaged, but … “Hon, did we ever sign that will?” “What will? The one you downloaded? No, because we could never figure out the thing for the kids’ money.” “Oh, yeah. Well, do you want to pull it up...
