6. Because you want to decide who gets your property.
Dying without a Will (often called “dying intestate”) means state law will decide how your property should be distributed. The state’s plan is not a bad one but it may not match your wishes. For example, in Missouri, if a husband and father dies without a Will, his separate property will not all go to his spouse as he may presume. A portion of his property will go to his children, possibly leaving his surviving spouse with insufficient assets to maintain her standard of living. Most of his property will also go through a probate administration, which can take many months to complete and increase the costs of distributing his property to his spouse and children.
Rather than relying on your state’s default distribution scheme, you can decide how your property is distributed by creating a Will or a Revocable Living Trust. Both allow you to designate who should receive your property when you die and in what portion or share. Both allow you to leave the property to your beneficiaries either outright or in a trust. Both allow you to designate the person or persons you want to oversee the distribution of your property to your family, loved ones or favorite charities. Most people have worked too hard to build their legacies to leave the distribution of it up to their state’s default scheme.
