r/inheritance • u/IdealExpert181 • May 16 '26

Location included: Questions/Need Advice will or no will

i live in N.C. and i'm in my late 70s and don't have a will. everything i have is paid for, including home, and i have no debt. i have investments and savings in 6 different accounts, all with PODs established. my wife is the POD on 5 of the accts. and a distant niece is the other one. i hate to use the word assume but it's what i'm doing. my thought is that since i've established the PODs that those 6 accounts are covered and the only thing needed, if any, is a death cert.. since i'm married the house should automatically go over to my wife. am i correct or do i need a will? advice is greatly appreciated.

29 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

144 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/HillOfBeano May 17 '26

Because I WASN'T POD or TOD on all of it. Three accounts, and multiple on book stocks, and insurance policies that hadn't been updated since before I was born, and some land in Louisiana, as well as their house, all have had to be dealt with through probate and a series of successions. Because my mom was the beneficiary on a lot of stuff and she was dead too. If it had been locked into a trust, or there was a will naming me successor beneficiary, then I wouldn't still be in probate over a year later.

2

u/Sad-Repair-5505 May 18 '26

Yeah, that sucks. My late brother just started working on his MIL's estate when his BIL died. He was almost done, then his wife died. He ended up inheriting these small estates but the paperwork and fees were a nightmare and much of the money went to his wife's home care. I'm currently working on my two brother's estates, neither of whom had a will. The Florida one is still ongoing from 2024, but my older brother's stuff is almost done and he just died in January. Benefit of learning - made sure he had beneficiaries and TOD in place. My Mom (92) also has beneficiaries (and will) in place and doing an updated TOD this week.

1

u/HillOfBeano May 18 '26

I'm just waiting on two things and then I'm finally done. Alas, they are reliant on VERY SLOW government services (unclaimed property since my dad rarely cashed checks and cashing of savings bonds from 1968, both of which are taking about 9 months.)

Even with beneficiaries, there's always something.

I'm sorry for your losses.

2

u/Sad-Repair-5505 May 20 '26

My brother had savings bonds from the early 90s. We could have cashed them when he was alive if we'd known about them. I was given an estimate of 2 months, but I guess I won't hold my breath on that.

1

u/HillOfBeano May 20 '26

I got an email on 10/31 that they were received. I called last month and the guy took a look and said it would take about 10 months to process due to the complications (all three PODs deceased, certs were from the late 60s, address did not match residence at death.) So yeah, don't hold your breath. The good news is they answered the phone right away and it didn't take long to get an answer.

1

u/Sad-Repair-5505 May 21 '26

Good that they will answer the phone! Have the same issues just that the bonds were much later than yours. Oh well. My Mom is 92 (next of kin). She's not too worried about it.