On Friday, January 8, 2016 at 1:13:32 PM UTC-5, Nancy Young wrote:
> On 1/8/2016 6:58 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
>
> > Neither of us has a will, but all of our assets are jointly titled,
> > except for our 401k's and we're each other's beneficiaries on those.
>
> We also don't have a will, everything is jointly owned or each
> other is the beneficiary. I'm not saying that's ideal but that's
> how it is.
>
> This flipped out my sil, so I explained why I wasn't worried, and
> she said What if you both die in a crash? I said You and my brothers
> get to fight it out. I know, not a nice way to leave things.
>
> I just finished going through the process of getting my mother's
> estate into a trust. It was a lot of work but eventually it will be
> time well spent. No hassle settlement later.
>
> nancy

I imagine whichever of us survives the other will make a will.

In Michigan, if you die intestate, your stuff goes automatically to
family members (there's a hierarchy), and our stuff is considered
to be owned 50/50 by each of us. So if we died simultaneously
without a will, my half would go to my mother, and his half would
be allocated among his father and/or brothers. It'd be unpleasant
for whoever ended up cleaning up the estate.

What struck me as odd, upthread, was the Scottish law that says
you can't cut your children out of your estate. My mother,
for example, could will all of her stuff to Donald Trump and
the law wouldn't care. (Not that she would, of course.)

Actually, it might be nice to call Trump's "people" and say, "Come
and get it. Sell her crummy little house and junk all of her
clothes. At least I won't have to deal with it."

Cindy Hamilton