Where there's a will: the basics of estate planning ... for procrastinators.

• Author: Lewers, Christine
• Position: Estate Planning

Fifteen years ago a client of estate-planning attorney Steven Palmquist promised several times to make an appointment with him to discuss her will, but she never did. Family members later told Palmquist, who is a partner at the New Albany office of Kightlinger & Gray LLP, that she tried to hand-write her final wishes alter she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.

Unfortunately, the will she wrote did not meet Indiana legal criteria.

"Since then, I've gotten a little more aggressive," Palmquist says about dealing with people who are procrastinating about planning their estates. "This was a clear case where her property was not passed on the way she wanted it to be."

According to Nolo.com, a legal-advice Web site, about 70 percent of Americans don't have wills. Palmquist and other estate-planning experts know that for most people making a will is about as appealing as having a tooth pulled. The difference is that death is more certain than dentures, and the consequences your family might face if you die without a will can only serve to compound their loss.

The good news is, planning what will happen to your assets upon your death isn't as complicated, or necessarily as expensive, as many might think, say Palmquist and other Indiana estate planners.

The first step is to understand what a will does and doesn't do, say attorneys.

A will lets you control who gets your assets after you die and who will be responsible for the distribution of your assets upon your death. This person, whom you name in your will, is called the executor of the will or your personal representative. A will also lets you have a say in whom you would like to raise your minor children and manage their inheritance if both parents die.

What happens if you die without making these decisions and putting them into a legal document? "If you don't write a will, then the state of Indiana will write one for you," says Mark Witmer, an attorney who specializes in succession and estate planning with Beckman Lawson H.P in Fort Wayne.

Witmer says about half of his job is educating clients about the estate process and dispelling many of the myths people have about wills. For example, many come to him thinking that if they die without a will, the state gets their property, Others think all assets automatically transfer to a surviving spouse.

Neither assumption is correct. In Indiana, if you die without a will, your assets will likely be divided between a surviving spouse and any children...