Last wishes best tucked safely into a will

Does the thought of having to write a will seem a bit depressing?

Then think of it this way: It's not about the inevitability that, someday, you'll die. It's about giving one last shout-out to the people you're leaving behind.

Think of your will as one last Christmas list for your loved ones, with you playing the role of a jolly, gift-giving -- albeit deceased -- Santa Claus.

OK, maybe it's a bit much. But, for all too many of us, writing a will remains a much-dreaded, never-completed task on our list of "things we'll do someday -- honest."

Las Vegas attorney Gary Fales has noticed that will-avoiders typically include single people with no dependents and people in their 20s and 30s, particularly if they don't have kids. For them, the impetus to finally take care of estate planning needs often arrives when they have kids or when a sickness drives home the reality that nobody lives forever.

"In fact, my message is ... you're actually six times more likely to become disabled this year than you are to die," Fales adds, which makes wills and other such estate planning instruments as financial and health care powers of attorney "the most fundamental set of documents everyone should have."

At the most basic level, a will is a set of instructions a person leaves to those who will be left here after he or she dies. Without a will, the decedent's estate -- home, savings accounts, personal belongings and anything else he or she owns -- will be distributed to survivors according to a predetermined hierarchy established by the state and regardless of what the decedent might have preferred.

Some people are fine with that, Fales says, but others may have their own ideas about where their assets should end up. And that's where a will serves as a blueprint of the decedent's wishes.

Without a will, assets may go to distant relatives whom you don't know or may not even particularly like, Fales says. Live-in but unmarried significant others, who may not enjoy the legal standing that married spouses do, may be left out.

Without a will, notes Las Vegas attorney John O'Brien, tensions may arise between a decedent's first spouse and first set of kids and subsequent spouses and subsequent sets of kids.

Without a will, a decedent won't be able to allocate a larger share of assets to, say, a sibling with special financial or medical needs, O'Brien adds. A decedent's desire to bequest a college, charity or other nonprofit also may not be honored.

And, without a will, instructions for the disposition of one's own body may not be clear. A funeral director, Fales explains, could refuse to perform a cremation if family members object and specific instructions aren't contained in a will.

Most importantly, a will and other estate planning instruments enable parents to provide for their children if the parents die. "If you have minor children, (a will is) the only place that you're going to be able to name your permanent guardians for your minor children, and that is crucial," Fales says.

"I have six kids, and it's such a relief to me that the state -- the judge -- will give priority, give precedence, to whoever I name in my will."

O'Brien has seen situations in which parents have died without having named guardians for their children. "It becomes a child custody proceeding, like in a divorce case."

Wills can be as varied as the people who have them. What a good attorney brings to the table is the ability to customize a will -- as well as other estate planning documents -- to each person's needs and wishes, O'Brien says.

While costs vary, Fales estimates that a will and powers of attorney documents would cost from $100 to $800. Including a trust would probably increase that to between $500 and $2,000.

Some opt to save money by purchasing will-writing kits and creating wills themselves. For example, Mike Angell, president of Nevada Legal Forms & Books Inc., offers will-writing packs for less than $10.

Most do-it-yourself will-writers, he says, are "I don't want to say avoiding lawyers, but have had experience with situations they don't want to go back to, or they know somebody who has had a bad experience."

Will-writing kits offer step-by-step instructions for writing a will and include explanations and definitions of key topics and words "so you are educating yourself at the same time and doing it yourself," Angell says.

A kit "doesn't replace getting legal advice, but it's a complement," he adds, and customers even include attorney-referred people who fill out the paperwork themselves and then return it to their attorneys for review.

Fales, however, is wary of DIY wills. "You could do it yourself," he concedes, "but there are several reasons I don't recommend it."

Chief among those reasons: the chance that a DIY document might not be completely filled out, be filled out incorrectly, or be deficient in other ways that might lead a court to not accept it.

"If the document isn't filled out right," Fales says, "you've just caused yourself more problems than if you had just paid an attorney to do it."

Even more potentially problematic are handwritten, or holographic, wills. "When I see those, I'm like, you've got to be kidding," Fales says.

Wills -- even handwritten wills -- must meet specific legal requirements, he explains, and, lacking specific elements, a handwritten will may not be accepted by a court.

An attorney also will be able to look at other issues -- estate planning concerns, for example -- and plan for situations that might arise down the road, O'Brien says.

Writing a will -- and estate planning in general -- "can become quite involved," he says. "You prepare a draft, and if you have the client review the draft, it will sometimes raise another question."

Problems, and family feuds, even can arise from something as simple as fuzzy language, O'Brien says. "You start to find out how close your family is by leaving some vague clauses in your will."

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.