Weekend Inspiration - What You Can Learn From The Passing of Prince

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As most of you know, my mother passed away on April 18th. Shortly after that we heard of the passing of Prince. Although the one thing they have in common is their death, the thing they don’t share was the creation of a will.

It seems dear ol’ Prince left his massive 300 million dollar estate without a will. My mother did not.

My mom from Methuen, who didn’t have any degree of wealth had a will, but Prince with his large estate didn’t bother to create a will and determine how he wanted his estate distributed.

Prince had several brothers and sisters, most of them half-siblings. The State he resided in looks at those siblings as if they are full blood relations meaning his estate will be split between all of them whether or not they are full or half related.

According to Time Magazine, “…it’s likely to be a mess that will take years to sort out. The fact that Prince died without official instructions on how to handle his estate is very unusual–even surprising,” says Darren Wallace, an estate lawyer at Day Pitney, LLP, a Connecticut law firm. “With the amount of control he exercised throughout his life with respect to his contractual arrangements and protection his music and his image and his name change—clearly he understood a lot of these issues.”

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A Lesson on Wills from Prince

If there is one thing to learn here, it’s that everyone, and I do mean everyone, should have a will. It’s never too late to make one.

People think you must have a certain size estate, but that’s simply not true. Unless you live in a paper bag, you likely have belongings and feelings about who should get them. With a will or basic estate plan, you have some kind of control over what will happen after you’re gone. And even if you don’t care what happens, think of the mess you’ll leave behind for your loved ones.

A will is a relatively straightforward process and can be changed many times. So even if you put something simple in place to start, as you get used to the process and idea, you can change and modify the document.

There’re lots of great resources out there that can help you create a will, but the best bet is to see an attorney who specializes in estate planning.

Don’t leave it to chance.

In the meantime, here’re some articles from around the web to help you figure out what’s holding you back from creating your will and some resources about how to get started!