Many of you will be familiar with the artist named Prince, who died recently at his Paisley Park Recording Studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Local media has covered this story quite extensively and one of the most surprising and tragic aspects has been the discovery that Prince died without a will. There now looms a likely lengthy and expensive legal fight between his siblings over control of his estate.
This article does a great job of illustrating some of the many downsides to dying without a will (what we call in the legal field "dying intestate"). This paragraph really stood out to me:
"It’s a lesson for other people, whether rich or poor, famous or regular. When you die without a will, you get no say. If you hated a relative, your children might end up in that person’s care. If you divorced and forgot to take a previous spouse’s name off an account or insurance policy, your new spouse or children might not benefit. If you have a business, and children with no interest in it and no business savvy get control, the value of your life’s work could be destroyed."
Read the full piece at this link