I’ve been an Atlanta estate planning lawyer for several years, and on a regular basis I get new calls from people seeking help with an estate of a loved one who died intestate (i.e., without a Will).  Those calls usually begin with the caller complaining that the decedent made no Will.  Having represented dozens of clients dealing with intestate estates, I am immediately sympathetic. I can still help the caller but know from the start the process will be more complicated than it needed to be. Rocket Lawyer, an online legal service provider, found in a recent estate planning survey that 61% of Americans do not have a Last Will and Testament. Even worse, that number climbs to 70% for people with children under 18 years old.  Failing to make a Will, especially for people in the latter category, will subject your estate to unnecessary difficulty and, in some cases, utter calamity through family infighting, incompetent estate administration, and litigation. People have myriad reasons to not make a Will: I’m young. I don’t have kids. I don’t own enough stuff. I’m not sick. I don’t want to think about death. The law will take care of it. All of the… [Read More]