Your last will and testament can go beyond what’s included in the original documents. Incorporation occurs when the will references other documents to be used for the purpose of dispersing property and assets, naming guardians, or excluding heirs.
Do you have questions about your will? Are you unsure whether it’s properly structured to protect your assets, as well as your family? If so, it may be time to give Walk-In Wills a call. Our licensed attorneys have experience in this and many other estate planning matters, including powers of attorney, probate, and revocable trusts. Incorporation can be a useful method to ensure your estate is handled in the correct manner after you’re gone.
While it’s a relatively simple concept, will integrity is highly important. Will integrity refers to the complete will document and how it’s put together. In order for a will to be coherent, it must be presented in a reasonable order. When a will includes page numbers or is clipped together, will integrity is pretty straightforward.
However, when a will becomes unclipped from other pages or does not include page numbering, establishing will integrity can be a bit more difficult. In this case, the wording of the will is used to establish the proper order of pages. Because establishing will integrity can be challenging, will creators are urged to number their pages in a meaningful way in the event disputes ever arise.
Wills can be rather broad in scope. For example, a will may reference a separate document to be used for estate planning purposes. This is known as incorporation by reference. For incorporation by reference to be considered valid, the following elements must be present:
In some cases, the document being referred to in the will can have been created after the will was. However, the document must refer to tangible property in this case. Tangible property includes things like real estate or vehicles.
Here at Walk-In Wills, our attorneys are well-versed in many different estate planning areas. Along with assistance with less common topics, such as incorporation, we can also help you draft basic wills, create trusts, and make sure your healthcare decisions are honored.
