A portion of the US population still lags behind at carrying out estate planning. A 2025 study by Trust & Will revealed that 55% of these individuals had no estate planning documents, and only 31% had a simple will.
A recent study by Caring.com conducted in 2025 involved over 2,500 adults and showed that only 24% possess a will. 13% have a living trust, while 4% report having other forms of estate planning.
A will is one of the simplest ways to direct how your property and assets are divided after death. It outlines potential heirs and appoints someone to administer their affairs once they pass on. A will also has the power to appoint a guardian for minor children.
An estate planning lawyer can be incredibly helpful in the efficient execution of one’s last will and testament. They can also provide assistance to the creation of other estate planning devices. Lawyers who specialize in estate planning are particularly skilled at positioning estate planning papers in such a way that they fully capture the client’s legal intentions and objectives.
When a person dies without a will, property will be distributed according to the intestacy laws. These laws may not always reflect the deceased’s wishes. A last will and testament is merely one component of an extensive estate preparation that can incorporate trusts, beneficiary assignments, powers of attorney, and advance health care directives.
Let’s examine the important role played by a will as part of an effective estate plan and the factors to account for when preparing one.
What a will controls
A will governs what are called probate assets. These assets refer to property that’s titled solely in your name with no other legal mechanism attached to it. Your will distributes real estate held individually, a car, a personal bank account, furniture, and other belongings according to its instructions.
Assets with a built-in transfer mechanism work differently. A jointly owned home, a retirement account with a named beneficiary, and a life insurance policy bypass the will entirely and go directly to whoever is named on the account, regardless of what the will says.
What happens without one
Dying without a will doesn’t mean nobody decides what happens to your property. Instead, a fixed formula compliant with your state’s intestacy laws applies, regardless of what you actually wanted.
Those formulas typically favor a spouse and biological children in a set order, which may or may not reflect a person’s actual wishes. This outcome may be especially true for blended families, unmarried partners, or anyone who wanted to leave something to a friend or a charity rather than a relative by default.
Friends and charitable organizations aren’t recognized as heirs under intestate succession at all.
The absence of a will also affects guardianship. Parents of minor children typically name a guardian in their will specifically since the alternative is letting a court decide with no guidance from the parents. This is a process nobody wants their family to go through during an already difficult time.
The core decisions a will makes
In every will, the testator must meet several legal requirements so that the court can make accurate decisions. One of the first questions to ask is, “To whom does the ownership of an estate fall under?” Other important considerations include who receives such assets, guardianship and social protection for minor children if both or either parent cannot provide for them, and the possibility of inheritance going to someone else if the person for whom the will was made dies. Having these aspects in the will can help articulate the testator’s wishes and reduce any lack of clarity for the family after the testator’s death.
Without an alternative plan, the assets of the deceased will just fall back into probate. None of those are difficult ideas by themselves, but the terminology must be exact. Using vague language is precisely what turns an uncomplicated estate into a disputed one.
For residents in Illinois planning to draft a will, it is advisable to consult a lawyer or firm with experience. Rockford, IL wills lawyer Erin E. Walsh and her firm are focused on protecting the interests of their clients from the onset. When you provide them with the necessary documentation, they can review your situation and determine what you need in your will.
Why a will fits inside a larger plan, not instead of one
A will is rarely the whole plan, even when it’s the most visible part of it. Trusts, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives handle situations a will was never designed for. A will has no authority over what happens if someone becomes incapacitated while still alive.
An estate planning lawyer will walk through all of these pieces together rather than drafting a will in isolation, since gaps between documents are where estates run into trouble even when each individual piece was drafted correctly.
Updating matters as much as creating
It is common for people to make a will as early as at the age of 30. Then, as they reach about 50, they may get married or get married for the second time. Some people move to a new area or start their own family. Wealth is most likely to increase more than by any other factor. In such cases, adhering to an old will may be unadvisable, and a new one ought to be written.
In most instances, an obsolete will is still treated as valid as long as it satisfies all the necessary legal requirements. It will be enforced as written, regardless of whether its contents still reflect the personal wishes of the person who died.
None of these factors makes a will complicated to create in the first place. It makes it worth doing carefully and worth revisiting once life changes enough that the original version stops fitting.
