How Members Can Get A Free Will
This post was modified from a January 29th weekly email.
More people have been reaching out recently to inquire about the process for obtaining a free will through our law firm (a member-exclusive perk!), so I wanted to provide some basic information that might save people some time if they want to take advantage of that this year.
Why do you want or need a will? Well, wills are fairly important legal documents. If you die without a will, your assets will be distributed based off of Arizona’s “intestate succession” laws, which firmly dictate how your property and possessions are distributed. If you wanted to leave specific pieces of property to certain people, it is very unlikely that the intestate succession laws would account for that. You may also have certain desires about who will gain custody of your children or who will obtain power of attorney over your estate - Arizona has laws regarding that which also may not reflect your desires. I attended an investment seminar last year where an employee from Glendale shared one of the worst case scenarios that could happen - one of the Glendale city employees passed away at a fairly young age without a will, meaning that their estranged parent inherited everything instead of their long-term partner. Since that employee was not married to their partner, the partner had no legal standing and the parent refused to give them anything. Wills are legally binding documents that force the state (and your family) to recognize your desires - it’s thus never too early to start thinking about what you want to do down the road, even if retirement is still quite a ways away.
Free wills are available through UAEA’s law firm, Napier Baillie Wilson Bacon & Tallone, P.C. Any UAEA member can reach out via phone or email to start the process - their contact information is as follows.
Phone: 602-248-9107
Email: mnapierpc@aol.com
The firm will first walk you through the process either via phone or email. Once they’ve completed the initial conversations, they will reach out to the UAEA Board to verify that you are a current dues-paying member. After that, they’ll send you an engagement letter (which outlines their responsibilities and obligations to you as you work with the firm) and a packet of asset-based information that you can fill out at your leisure over the next few days, weeks, or months. If you are legally married, they will also send an engagement letter to your spouse - under Arizona law, spouses cannot be completely excluded from wills. They also need to be aware of any decisions that are made that involve shared assets or your estate.
The information packet is about 7 pages and asks a series of questions about your personal information, the people you want included in your will, your current assets, and the individual you would like to handle your estate. It also gives you the option to work with them on creating Financial and Healthcare Power of Attorney documents, as well as a Living Will (which specifies medical treatments you are comfortable undergoing if you become incapacitated and unable to make or communicate decisions for yourself in a healthcare setting). Those last 3 are additional perks also offered for free. You can fill out this packet over whatever time period you’d like - depending on the nature of your assets and the number of people you want to include, it might be something you finish in a few days or over a few months. Once you finish it, you’ll return it to the firm, where they’ll review your information and ask any clarifying questions they need to finalize the paperwork. Attorneys at the firm will then draft the official will with the information you’ve provided, and return it to you after a few weeks for your approval.
One last note - wills are legally binding but they are not set in stone. You can draft a will now and return to it in a few years to make revisions. As long as you’re a UAEA member you can come back to the law firm and get free changes made to existing wills - the process is also much faster the second time if you’re modifying an existing document rather than starting from scratch.