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Your will can be very simple or very complicated, depending on factors such as your personal and family situation and your estate's value. But whether simple or complicated, you can still make several mistakes in your will. Here are a few of the big ones.
Forgetting to review your will annually
Many different reasons can cause you to update your will, such as getting married, getting divorced, or having a major change in your financial fortunes.
 | Unless you review your will at least once a year, you run a very serious risk of having an out-of-date will when you die. |
So pick a date, any date, that you set aside each year to review your will to see if you need to make any updates to the document.
Forgetting to include a residuary ("leftovers") clause
| Your will's residuary clause can either cover the "leftovers" of your estate (if you want to be very explicit in your will about who will get what property), or it can actually be the main clause you use if you just want to treat most or all of your estate as one big pool to be divided up among your main beneficiaries. |
Regardless of your strategy, if you forget to include a residuary clause to cover property that you don't specifically mention elsewhere in your will, the law will dictate how any property that you have not otherwise mentioned will be distributed, and to whom. You will now have died partially intestate, meaning that only some of your property is covered by your valid will.
Forgetting the "just in case" contingencies
In sports, players have backups — someone to fill in if something happens, such as the player being injured.
In your will, you need to make sure you include those backups and understudies, or contingencies. Specifically, include contingent beneficiaries who will "fill in" if your main beneficiary dies before you do. Additionally, you must also name a contingent personal representative who can serve in that all-important role if the person whom you've designated for some reason can't do the job.
Sticking with your personal representative when you really need a substitute
Just as you need to review your will annually, you must also periodically ask yourself if the person or institution you selected as your personal representative is still the best choice. You may have selected your sister as your personal representative five years ago, but now she is estranged from the family, or perhaps severely disabled from an automobile accident.
Or you may have selected a small-town bank as your personal representative because you've done business with them for more than 30 years. However, last year a behemoth, out-of-state financial institution purchased the bank and the people at the branch have all been laid off.
Even though your instincts may be to avoid making any changes in your estate plan after you have your will and other aspects in place, you need to strongly consider designating a new personal representative if you're now concerned for any reason about your original choice.
Forgetting about all of those pesky statutes that affect wills
Remember that the laws of the state in which you live play an important role in what happens to your estate. While you can "override" some of those statutes in your will, while other statutes are "carved in stone." (That would make them sort of "statue statutes, right?")
Anyway, as you're deciding what you want to write in your will, keep in mind the statutes that you need to deal with. For example, remember that abatement statutes come into play when your estate is not valuable enough to meet all of your obligations (such as money you still owe) plus what you've specified in your will about what your beneficiaries are supposed to get.
 | Work with your attorney on a number of "what if" scenarios. (For example, what if the value of your stock portfolio falls dramatically, how does that affect what you want to do in your will?) When you do your annual will review, be sure to make any necessary changes to keep unfavorable statutes from coming into play. |
Getting too precise in your will
If you state specific dollar amounts in your will, you risk having your estate being distributed in a way that you really didn't intend. Instead, use percentages wherever possible, particularly for the larger shares of your estate among your beneficiaries.
Suppose that your estate is valued at $500,000 when you create your will, and you decide to leave most of it to your only daughter, except for $50,000 that you want to go to your only brother. Your intention is that your daughter will get 90 percent of your estate. But when you draft your will, you don't state the particular percentage in your will; but instead, you state that $50,000 will go to your brother. (You figure that if the value of your estate rises your daughter will get even more, but you want to keep your brother's amount fixed at $50,000.)
But suppose that before you die the value of your estate decreases dramatically for some reason, such as a costly medical expense that uses up most of your estate. When you die, your estate is now worth $75,000. By preparing your will as described above, your brother will still get $50,000, but now your daughter will only get $25,000!
If, however, you had specified in your will that your daughter receive 90 percent and your brother 10 percent, then even though both will receive far less than they would have if your estate were still worth $500,000, at least your intentions of leaving most of your estate to your daughter will still be in effect.
Using your beneficiaries as will witnesses
 | Never use a beneficiary as a witness to your will. Doing so is a legal conflict of interest and could result in your beneficiary not receiving what you have stated in your will. |
The same person as both a beneficiary and a will witness casts a shadow of doubt about what influence that person may have had on you, and could open the door for other beneficiaries to claim that you were influenced by that "unscrupulous" person.
| If you use an attorney, have his or her office staff members serve as witnesses. If you don't use an attorney, make sure that your witnesses are not named as beneficiaries in your will. |
Failing to factor in the personal side
The decisions you make about your estate that are specified in your will should include your "non-monetary," or personal, objectives in addition to your monetary (financial) goals. Don't just go "by the numbers"; instead, really think through the choices you make and consider family, emotional, and other considerations.
For example, suppose you have three children, and two of them are very well off financially while the third is a struggling would-be social worker. Family tradition may dictate that you split your estate equally among your three children, but you may wish to leave more to your not-so-well-off child and less to the others. The choice is yours.
Keeping important information from your attorney
Make sure you tell your attorney everything that you can think of — even personal, sometimes painful, or embarrassing items — when you are deciding what to put in your will. Even if you don't think some long-ago item is relevant, err on the side of too much information.
For example, if long ago as a teenager you were an unmarried parent, make sure that your attorney is aware of this fact as well as what happened to the child. Are you legally the child's parent? Did you place the child up for adoption? Answers to similar questions will help your attorney put the correct legal language in your will to reflect what you want — or don't want — to happen with your estate with regards to that child.
Tell your attorney if your business is having difficulties, or if you and your spouse are having marital problems and divorce looks like a possibility. Your will must be one step ahead of life changes that you may be able to anticipate.
Rushing through your will
Take your time!
Even if you think you have a relatively uncomplicated family and financial situation and preparing your will can be a snap, you must still go through a number of what-if scenarios to make sure that you have thought of everything. Even when working with your attorney, prompt him or her with the same what-if questions to see if the questions spark any thoughts about potential problems that you need to address.
The last thing you want to happen is that you think you have a valid will that accurately reflects what you want to happen with your estate, and then after you die, all kinds of problems surface because you failed to address what you thought were nitpicky details that turned out to be very important.
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