A Last Will & Testament is a legal document that sets forth your wishes regarding the distribution of your property and the care of any minor children. Benefits to a will include the ability to be clear about who gets what when it comes to your assets. Failure to have any estate planning in place may leave your estate subject to the decisions of judges or state officials, and they may not decide on the distribution of your estate in the way you would have liked. Assets that don’t have a beneficiary assigned to them individually are subject to a will, and will pass through the will to be disbursed to the beneficiaries, but only after probate occurs, if the assets meet or exceed probate limits.

PROBATE LIMITS IN ARIZONA

• Real Property: $100,000 for all equity in all real estate owned in the State of Arizona
• Personal Property: $75,000 for all combined personal property, including vehicles, bank accounts, jewelry, etc.

Consider a will like a one-dimensional document, a will doesn’t “hold” anything (i.e. you don’t title anything into the will’s name), but it will distributed your assets to those people you’ve named in your will.