Chapter 7: What Goes in the Will
Your Guide to What to Put in—and Leave Out

Peter’s sister Jane was happily married to Ted for a decade when Peter decided to write his will, leaving all his property to “my sister’s husband.” Maybe Peter was thinking of Jane’s shaky marriage record – she’d had several previous husbands – and wanted his estate to go whomever she was married to at the time he died. Or maybe he just assumed Jane and Ted would be together forever and neglected to write Ted’s name in the will. They were fishing buddies as well as brothers in law, after all.

Whatever he intended, Peter certainly didn’t intend for Jane to have to go to court to fight Ted over Peter’s will. But that’s exactly what happened, because between the time Peter wrote his will and the time he died (without updating it), Jane and Ted had divorced, and Jane quickly remarried. She assumed that Peter’s estate would go to her and her new husband. But Ted thought that the will referred to the man who was her husband at the time Peter wrote the will – and that was Ted! After the fight went to court, not much was left for any of them.

One reason it’s hard to spell out a formula for a will is that all of us have unique circumstances in our lives that resist easy, one-size-fits-all definitions – like Peter and Jane, for example. So as you read this chapter, remember that there’s no set formula for what goes into a will. However, there are some things you might want to consider if you fall into certain categories--younger couples, older couples, unmarried couples, single people, divorced people, and so on. We discuss some of these special considerations in chapters 13-17.

Below are the more common clauses of a basic will. See Appendix B for a sample basic will, with commentary on what each clause means.