Quite often when I ask someone whether they have made a will they answer “why make a will if I have nothing?”.
I won’t deceive you, because to a large extent the statement is true, and the most advisable thing in those cases is to save the less than forty euros a will costs, but the statement is not always true, so I would like to ask you a few questions.
Do you have nothing, or do you have no real estate?
There is a general tendency to consider that only real estate (flats, houses, villas, farms, etc.) has value; however there are movable assets that are more valuable than real estate (boats, cars, jewellery, paintings, machinery, intellectual property, or bank balances).
By making a will you decide who gets the assets, not only the real estate, but everything you own.
A will hardly costs much more than €40, but to dispose of the bank balance your heirs will need a declaration of intestate heirs which will cost at least between €150 and €200 (in addition to taking almost a month to process, counting from when all the documentation is submitted).
Do you know what you will have in the future?
I have already explained the low cost of a will, but do not forget that a will only takes effect the day you are gone, and it is impossible to know whether you will have assets in the future.
It is not pleasant to think about making a will (in fact, being a Notary, it took me twelve years to make mine); precisely for that reason the most advisable thing is to do it as soon as possible; it is much more common than you imagine that, from waiting so long, many people die without a will.
By the way, let me take the opportunity to explain that many people want the will to say that their assets will be theirs until they die, but there is no need to say that in a will, as that is the case by law.
Do you have your relatives under control?
It is neither the first nor the last time that in a Notary’s office the inheritance of a grandfather or a relative is settled, and it turns out that one of the heirs did not make a will in the belief that they had nothing (when they did have the right to accept the relative’s inheritance).
At that moment people who may not even be in contact have to agree, which is difficult, but if we add that some have to wait a month to make the declaration of heirs of someone who did not make a will because they had no assets, agreement will be further complicated.
Have you thought about your minor children?
You can rest easy, because if you die the other parent will exercise parental authority.
But it may happen that the other parent dies, in which case a guardian would have to be appointed by the court, and you will always know better than the judge who is the most suitable person to take care of your children.
If you consider that the other parent is not fit to exercise parental authority, you cannot deprive them of it, and the most appropriate thing is to start the corresponding court proceedings during your lifetime; however, if due to life circumstances (even if only because of the cost of that procedure) you do not want to start it
Leaving in your will pre-constituted evidence so that your heirs or relatives can start the process to deprive the other parent of parental authority may be a solution (not very advisable, but at least better than nothing).
Do you have debts?
Remember that what characterises the heir is not that they receive assets, but your obligations (there is a saying that goes “better to pay than to inherit”).
If you do not make a will and you have debts, your children can always renounce the inheritance, but they may accept it by mistake, and have to answer for your debts with their own assets; so it does no harm to make a will even if only to tell them what problems there are, and torecommend that they renounce the inheritance.
Is there something important you need to say to those closest to you?
Everyone thinks of a will as the act by which they dispose of their assets, but it is actually a declaration of last wishes.
Life, for some people, is complicated and we may need the moral peace of mind of wanting to tell someone something.
- Disinheriting ascendants who have treated us badly (although they probably will not outlive us)
- Declarations of love to children or relatives who for life reasons have grown emotionally distant from us
- Asking forgiveness from someone towards whom we have not behaved honestly.
Leaving a solemn record of this in a will can help, morally, both the testator and those closest to them.
Whether to denounce or punish someone, or to reconcile or ask for forgiveness, we cannot ignore the moral importance of a will.
Are you worried about your digital future?
The phenomenon of the Internet and Social Networks is a social phenomenon whose consequences are today difficult to measure; indeed, if you are reading these lines it is because you use the Internet fairly often, and probably for various purposes.
All your activity on the Internet leaves a trail, and it does no harm to state what you want to happen to that presence of yours on the internet: do we delete or keep our social media profiles? Do we want someone to take care of our websites or blogs?
If you have answered all these questions correctly, I think you can save the little less than forty euros that a will costs; otherwise, I think it would not hurt to think that over your lifetime you have surely wasted that money on bigger follies, and besides you can always change the will.
Taken from: http://www.notariofranciscorosales.com/por-que-hacer-testamento-si-no-tengo-nada/