Wills

At Crosswhite Law, our experienced legal team of estate planning lawyers helps individuals and families in the Statesville area and surrounding counties create effective estate plans through the use of wills, living trusts, and other legal tools. Creating a will or living trust is one of the most important steps you can take to protect your family and to ensure that your wishes are carried out after you are gone or should you become incapacitated.

The drafting of a will or the creation of a living trust can be simple or complex, depending on your situation and your needs. Both of these legal instruments provide you with many benefits, from peace of mind knowing that your wishes bring clarity and legal authority to your heirs and beneficiaries to providing other details related to end-of-life care, care for any minor children you leave behind, as well as tax benefits, and more. Our firm can fully evaluate your situation to help you make informed decisions and take the steps you need to put into effect the legal tools that will work for you.

What is a Will?

Whatever your stage in life, a will allows you to make a number of important decisions now and save the people you love a great deal of trouble once you've passed. Despite any discomfort that comes with discussing what happens after one's death, talking to an attorney about your estate and drafting estate planning documents takes relatively little time to complete and is within almost anyone's budget.

The benefits and functions of a will may vary from person to person but they are generally used to accomplish any or all of five goals:

• Choose beneficiaries. These will be the people and/or organizations to whom you wish to pass on your assets and belongings.

• Minimize taxes.

• Appoint a guardian to care for minor children. The same or a separate guardian may also be named  to manage any assets you pass on to your children until they become of age.

• Name an executor. This person will be in charge of seeing that your will is carried out.

• Establish residence.

Without a will, whatever your wishes or preferences might have been will be unknown. Thus, your estate will be subject to state probate laws in which a judge will decide how to distribute your assets and property without any input from you.