Does a will cover all of my assets?

“When we’re talking with estate planning clients and the topic of a will comes up, often times we’re asked, ‘Does a will cover all of my assets?’ And the short answer is, it can. It depends on your estate plan and how you want to do that, it depends on how you have your assets titled. Depends on if part of your estate plan is a trust, and if that trust is fully funded with your assets like it should be. One of the things to consider is that if you are just doing a will as part of your estate planning, along with maybe powers of attorney and things like that, but not doing a trust, you want to certainly have provisions in that will that cover everything. Whether it’s a residuary clause that makes sure everything ultimately transfers to your beneficiaries or you have assets that have transfer or payable on death provisions on those assets so that they transfer automatically. One of the things to keep in mind is that if you don’t have a will or a trust that dictates where your assets go after you pass away, you’re going to have a situation where you are going to have an intestate estate. And the state of Tennessee has laws that determine how your assets transfer, and that may or may not be something that you want to have happen. So, we always talk about those things with clients, and it’s important to know their wishes and how we can help them achieve those.”