21 October, 2020
There are many rewards to making a will. Not only because you can state what your last wishes are, but because, if you make a will, you will surely avoid many conflicts in the future for your heirs. Although it is a complicated issue to face, it is something that will happen to us one day: we all will pass away, and our assets will pass to our heirs. What’s the better way to regulate what you want to happen to your assets than to make a will?
Some great reasons for making a will are explained below.
1. You can Appoint Your Legal Heirs
The prime advantage of making a will is that you can decide who your heirs are. It is true that, by law, there are certain relatives, usually children, who are entitled to a part of the inheritance that is called strict legitimate and that consists of one-third of the inheritance.
But if you make a will, you can name heirs, respecting the legitimate extract of the forced heirs but leaving the rest of the inheritance to the heirs.
In this way, you can improve certain relatives over others, rewarding them for having dedicated more time to taking care of you in your old age or simply because they have less income and need more inheritance assets.
On the contrary, if a testament is not made, your assets will go, in equal parts, to your forced heirs, usually your children, without taking into account who needs it the most or who has taken care of you.
2. You can Distribute the Inheritance Assets
By making a will, you can not only name our heirs, but you can make, in the same will, the distribution of the assets or, simply, express the will that a certain asset is for a certain heir by making a legacy.
Therefore, Wills & Estate Planning is very useful when you want, for example, to leave a flat to a certain son or daughter, who lives with you: by making a legacy of that flat in favor of this heir, he will become the owner of the flat when you die.
3. You can Leave the Lifetime Usufruct of All Your Assets to Your Spouse
In the event of death, by law, the widower is entitled, apart from half of the assets that correspond to him or her if he is married in a community property regime, to one-third of the inheritance in usufruct, that is, in use and enjoyment.
Sometimes this percentage may not be enough for the peace of mind of our spouse since it could be the case that, on their own house, they have rights of use, but also the rest of the heirs, giving rise to conflicts regarding its use or sale. For this reason, through the will, you can leave the lifetime usufruct of all your assets to your spouse. In this way, you guarantee that, while you live, you are the only one who has the right to enjoy all the assets: housing, vehicles, available money, even if you share joint ownership with the rest of the heirs.
In addition, you can introduce a clause consisting of that, if any of the heirs do not accept this universal usufruct, they will only receive the strict legitimate inheritance that corresponds to them by law, seeing their share of inheritance reduced compared to the rest of the joint-heirs.
John Black is the Lead Content Marketer at Globex Outreach, mainly responsible for guest posting services. He creates content strategies that help clients connect with their target audience and build strong relationship.