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As seen in one of the many, many movies we have watched, dying without a Will creates chances for people to misappropriate your wealth. It is fun to watch such stories unfold in movies, but in real life, such a scenario often leads to fights and general unrest among family members.

Creating a Will is an essential part of your finances that cannot be ignored. Each day we push ourselves to earn more money and acquire wealth so that we can leave behind a rich legacy. Imagine the state of things when our life’s hard earned wealth is not distributed or taken care of the way we wanted to? We will literally have to disrupt our eternal sleep to come back as a ghost to set things right.

What Is A Will?

A Will is a document which acts as the legal medium through which one’s property can be distributed among heirs/ beneficiaries. The document has to be printed on a plain paper and signed before two witnesses.

Four Reasons Why Everyone Should Create A Will

In a country like India, many confusing things ensue when a person dies without a Will. The Intestacy laws will step in and take matters into their own hands. So, no matter how young or old you are, how much or how little wealth you have, creating a Will and updating it as and when a personal or financial situation changes should be on top of your priority list.

Here’s why you need to create a Will:

1. Avoid all the Confusion and family fights

When someone dies without a Will, chances are high that his legal heirs would get into conflicts to decide who gets what. Even the strongest of familial bonds may get broken in such scenarios. Nobody wants to do that to their family. Creating a Will ensures that clear instructions are available on who inherits what. The division of the deceased’s property will proceed in a more peaceful manner.

2. Minor Children may be left out with no Guardians

This is vital. Wealth or no wealth, as a responsible person, it’s your duty to make sure that your children are looked after until they are capable of taking care of themselves. If you prepare a Will, you will specify guardians for children and Executors for the Will, so your children will continue to have a safe environment. Otherwise, there is a chance that relatives would snatch all the wealth and leave the child to the fate of destiny.

Creating a Will in favour of a minor as the beneficiary is a common thing. When a minor’s rights are protected by appointing a guardian through the will, the maker of the Will can be relaxed that the minor’s property and interests are safeguarded. Never let your property go for an intestate succession if your intention is to give it to any minors. Appoint an executor and a guardian to the minor’s property till the minor attains 18 years. The guardian or executor cannot use the property for their personal use or benefits. They can use it only for the benefit of the minor.

3. Inappropriate Distribution of Your Wealth

There are various Laws based on individual’s religion or community that clearly state that how the property of the deceased needs to be distributed to the legal heirs if he/she dies intestate (meaning without making a Will). Such intestate distribution of the property may sometimes be against the wishes of the deceased person. Sometimes the deceased may not have wanted to bequeath any share of the property to a particular individual who may be included in the list of legal heirs.

Or in some case the deceased may want to give away a share of his/her property to any other person or charity, that may not belong to the list of his/her legal heirs at all. Such intentions should be clearly drafted in one’s Will so that the hard earned property and assets of the individual reaches the right person to whom the individual wanted to give that particular property.

The Law has specific rules on how the property is divided, in case a Will was not drafted. In such a situation, a person to whom you wished to give a part of your wealth to, may get nothing as he/she is not an heir. Also, if you have an heir who left the home or became an antisocial and to whom you wish to give nothing, could end up inheriting a considerable chunk of your wealth. In short, lack of a Will may lead to wealth being distributed in a manner that you dislike.

4. Senior citizens could be isolated

The most difficult part of life is when one of the elderly spouse expires and leaves the other old partner alone. In most cases, the children would be grown up and living with their own families. Sometimes it so happens that due to the pressure from the children and their spouses, the old parent may be forced to sign the sale deed of the property left behind by the deceased parent. And the children may fail to give any share to the old parent. This is how many senior citizens end up in old age homes or end up on the streets without a home.

The best way to safeguard the interest of your partner even after your death is to make a clear clause in the will of life interest on the property. Also, another clause that can be useful is creating an annuity payment. all these are the protective loopholes in the Will and no one can take away the right of the beneficiary till death.Hence the rights of senior citizens can be well protected by a strong Will if made in the right time.

Once your wealth is divided equally among your heirs, your children could decide to carry on with their lives after selling off their share of property, not bothering to take care of your spouse. This scenario could be sad if the individual is elderly and incapable of looking after themselves. To avoid this, you could create a Will with life interest.

This means that if you have a clause in your Will that says that a property jointly owned by heirs cannot be sold until the spouse dies, you will be ensuring that your better half will have a home of their own even in their old age. This also prevents other heirs from forcing the old spouse to sell his/her share off.

Create A Will

If the reasons we mentioned are not convincing enough, you may want to go through them again. However, for those of you who are certain that making a Will is only sensible, LegalDesk is here to inform you about the awesome, pre-drafted, lawyer-verified Will template. All you need to do is fill in details about yourself, your address of residence and the list of properties and beneficiaries. Additionally, if you wish to make amendments to your existing Will, you can make use of our Codicil template.

You can also give your email id, phone number and name and someone from our team will contact your shortly to help you prepare a Will.