There’s a curious sort of mindset that people seem to have when thinking about estate planning and drafting a will. On one hand, if asked, they would admit that they need a plan. They know they have assets. They know they have heirs. They know that one day they will pass away and they’ll need a plan in place to bring the two together.
At the same time, though, a lot of people just neglect to do any estate planning. It’s one of the few things in life where people know they need it and ignore it anyway.
For instance, did you know that most Americans do not have a will? If you don’t have one, you have a lot of company. Reports tend to put it between 50% and 66%.
So, it’s not just that some people neglect their estate planning. Most people do. Why is this?
One potential reason is that people do not want to do it because it seems complicated. That can be intimidating. If they don’t know where to start, they feel like they don’t have the time or energy to find out.
Much of the time, though, they just decide they’ll do it later. It’s easy to think that you’ll need a plan when you’re in your 70s, even if you have decades to go. You just decide to wait it out. This is problematic, of course, because no one really knows when they’ll need the plan, but it’s what many people do.
If this has gotten you thinking and you know it’s time to draft a will, you need to know exactly what steps to take.
