Do you still need a will if you don't have any major assests or real property?

Where you live isn’t what matters. With or without a Will, if you and your husband don’t make some other estate plan arrangements, he is guaranteeing you’ll find yourself in probate court. Is everything in just your husband’s name? If it is, his estate must go through probate regardless of whether there is a Will or not. If there is a Will, once verified, the judge can order: •        Naming the Executor,•        Legitimate creditors,•        Legitimate heirs (one of whom is the wife),•        Retitling of property,•        Payment of debts, and from what is left over after that•        Disbursement of inheritances, approval or waivers of inventory, accountings, closing, etc. If there is no Will, the law says the estate must go to probate to accomplish all the bullets above, just without the part about validating the Will.  And you get a state mandated Will. The only way the wife inherits the whole estate is if there are no other relatives, like children. Tennessee does have a statute that streamlines probate for a “small estate” (defined as an estate worth less than $25,000). It also has a provision for transferring a single vehicle without going through probate. However you and your husband have options to simplify leaving you his assets including: •        Joint ownership, •        Beneficiary or pay on death status, or •        A variety of Trust tools that can help you avoid probate and maximize tax benefits. He can save you the heartache, and the much larger costs of losing your inheritance to attorney, appraiser and court fees, possible challenges in probate court, taxes, and the drain of time to sort it all out by paying for a solid estate plan with a reliable estate plan and probate attorney. If he won’t do this, your rights will be the right to fight it out in court. To Your Success, Gale Allison, Principal AttorneyAllison Firm, PLLChttp://www.theallisonfirm.comhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/galeallison.com