There are no certainties in the world except income tax and death, as the saying goes. We pay income tax on our earnings while we are alive. But we must also distribute our assets after we die. This is where a “Will” comes into the picture, to pass on the legacy to its legitimate heir.

A Will is a document that mentions what will happen to your assets after your death. It mentions who gets what portion of it. The asset is what remains after you pay all your liabilities.

Write A Will Before It’s Too Late!

You must write a Will before it’s too late. As you grow older, life probability decreases. After retirement, you may not want to get into a family fight for your assets. So, Will becomes more and more important after you retire.

Will gives you the satisfaction that your wealth is passed on in good hands. There is still a chance that it may be wasted by the inheritor, but you will have the satisfaction that you took the right decision based on the information you had while writing it.

A Will eliminates friction among your inheritors. The fight for rights over assets gets ugly. Writing a Will ensures that there is no fight among the inheritors and they accept your decision in its true sense.

Carefully Draft The Contents Of Your Will

While drafting the Will, keep the wording simple and mention the name clearly. There should be no ambiguity. Include all the assets in the Will that you want to distribute.

Assets under your name: This should include assets such as land, apartment, bank accounts, stocks, mutual funds, etc.

General assets: This includes jewellery, artefacts, or anything expensive and not under a specific name.

You must keep in mind that the distributable assets are calculated after you subtract all the liabilities.

Review Your Will From Time To Time

Since your assets will keep changing with time, it is important to review your Will once every 2-3 years or after you add a big-ticket investment or asset in your portfolio. A few examples of when your asset portfolio changes are when you buy a new apartment, sell your old one and get money in your account, buy jewellery at festivals, or when you get a gift from someone. It is important to add the new ones in your Will and delete the ones that are no more there. In some cases, when you change your job, you might have to open a new bank account. This creates a new asset.

The second reason to review your Will is also because your relationship keeps changing as you grow. Your philosophy and thinking change as you get more insight into life and the world. You may want to donate some for charity. You may want to redistribute the proportion among your heirs based on other criteria which you never thought of before.

Finally, you can write a Will on your own or take help from a lawyer. Since you will not be there to clarify some of the points you might have mentioned in the Will, it is important to take help from professionals to ensure there is no confusion when the time comes for your heirs to claim their portion of wealth.

Author: Yug Advisors