A Last Will and Testament provides your instructions about your estate, both with respect to administration and distribution. Wills also often include instructions about minor children. If you have minor children you need a will, for sure. Even if you don’t have minor children, having a will should be on your bucket list.

A will addresses administration most directly by identifying a Personal Representative. (Personal Representative is the gender neutral substitute for executor/executrix, and became part of the proper terminology in Arizona when the state adopted the Uniform Probate Code 40 years ago.) The Personal Representative has as his or her tasks, in simple terms, gathering and distributing assets after paying creditors. There’s more to it than that, but those

Saturday March 1 marks the beginning of Make a Will Month. I can find no information on the origins of this event, but I believe it’s a creation of the nonprofit sector, having as dual purposes encouraging people to make sure their affairs are in order and leaving some money for those in need.

Whatever its origins, Make a Will Month provides an excellent opportunity to focus on the task that, for far too many of us, always seems to be at the bottom of the “to do” list. For some the delay factor is perceived immortality. For others it is mortality and the fears that attend the certain outcome we all face. And for others the issue becomes “who

Probate means, most narrowly, “proving a will,” and derives from the Latin verb probare (try, test or prove). In fact, its practical definition is much broader.

Generally, probate refers to the process for handling an estate after death. Thus, probate matters can involve the estate of an individual who dies with a will (testate), or without one (intestate). Probate cases involve the courts, and in most instances are about and only about gathering assets, paying debts, and distributing what is left over.

Probate also refers to the court and laws that exist to:  (a) address the administration of decedent’s estates; (b) handle trust disputes; and (c) appoint and supervise guardians (protectors of the person) and conservators (protectors of property)