I am trying to understand how wills are executed when most assets are held jointly or in accounts with named beneficiaries. As a hypothetical (not my exact situation, but this will help me understand how things work), consider a decedent who has the following:
Upon their death, how will the will be executed?
- A number of bank/brokerage accounts jointly held or POD/TOD to spouse, ~$50K
- Retirement accounts with living beneficiaries, ~$100K
- Life insurance with living beneficiaries, ~$500K
- House jointly owned WROS spouse, worth ~$500K; with mortgage balance ~$400K
- Car titled to self worth ~$10K; with loan balance ~$5K
- Miscellaneous personal items (laptops, phones, etc.) worth ~$5K
- Liabilities: credit card balances and recent medical/phone bills, ~$2K
- Liabilities: taxes for year of death, ~$5K
Upon their death, how will the will be executed?
- Will all assets jointly held or with living beneficiaries change hands before the will is executed?
- What is the size of the testator's estate when the will is executed? Is it just the car and misc. personal items? Or can the life insurance proceeds / POD accounts / house be dragged in?
- How will the liabilities be paid off? Where will the $25K specified in the will come from? Will the car/personal items have to be liquidated? Assuming the value of these items is still not sufficient, will the estate be considered insolvent?
- Can the surviving spouse pay choose to pay off the liabilities and whatever else the will specifies (e.g. $25k to X) from the POD-inherited accounts in order to keep the estate solvent? In this case, will the car and personal items be left intact to be transferred in the residuary estate to spouse?
Statistics: Posted by v42 — Tue Feb 20, 2024 12:51 pm — Replies 0 — Views 16