Amarillo, TX Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

If you are listed as beneficiary on your spouse's life insurance and it is payable directly to you upon his death, it will not be included as part of his estate and creditors shouldn't be able to get to it.

First, your 401k passes to your spouse under federal law and then to any designated beneficiary on a form you complete and file with the plan administrator.  It should not pass under your Will, but will if you have no spouse and have not completed and filed a designated beneficiary form. Second, if your bank accounts are "joint with right of survivor" or "pay on death," they, too, pass outside your Will. Third, your house can pass outside your Will and free of Medicaid Estate Recovery using a Transfer on Death or a Lady Bird Deed. Fourth, if the royalties are mineral rights, this approach could also be used. But you do need a Will, if only as backup.  Some title companies are uncomfortable with Transfer on Death and, to a lesser extent, Lady Bird Deeds. If you get an online Will (and I have seen those prepared by several vendors), it is likely to be inadequate and you are very likely not to execute it with all the legal requirements, leading to an intestacy.  The Will will not be worth the paper it is written on.  Moreover, those vendors have no skin in the game.  An attorney not only risks a bad online review, a loss of reputation at the court and among colleagues, but a malpractice suit -- and you benefit from the required malpractice insurance.  Until the Texas Supreme Court creates a Will form (which it has been working on for years), you and whomever you want to leave things to, are much safer with a Will drafted by an attorney and addressing your particular circumstances.  You will also find that a good estate planning attorney will provide much more than a Will:  documents to help you stay in charge of your medical care and finances while you are alive, information sheets and guidance for your executor, and counseling building on the information above.  You can be penny wise and pound foolish, or pay extra to an online vendor for a few other documents and risk going without important legal, tax and financial counsel, but is that really what you want?