By: Steven Muller
No one wants to acknowledge their own mortality, especially in writing. This is probably why avoiding doing so is the favored estate plan for many Americans. It has been estimated that 70 percent of all adults — many of whom are parents of minor children — do not have wills. Even among the affluent a dread of estate planning had 37 percent going without according to a 2004 survey conducted for PNC Financial Services Group.
Dying without a will (or intestate) leaves the division and distribution of one’s assets up to the state. “Basically, if you don’t write a will, the state will write one for you,” explains Thomas J. Dwyer, a Chicago attorney. “However, the way the state does it probably wouldn’t be how most of us would like it done,” he says.
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