WSJ Your Money Briefing - Estate Planning Via Text or Video. What Counts as a Will?

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

Some people are leaving text messages or videos with their wishes as a form of estate planning . By forgoing written word, their beneficiaries may not be entitled to their assets. Wall Street Journal reporter Ashlea Ebeling joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss why estate law is still rooted to ink on paper.  Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amazon Q Business is the generative AI assistant from AWS because business can be slow like wading through mud But amazon q helps streamline work So tasks like summarizing monthly results can be done in no time learn what amazon q business can do for you at aws.com learn more Here's your money briefing for friday, december 20th i'm jr wailen for the wall street journal Here's your money briefing for Friday, December 20th. I'm JR Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. About half of Americans have made out a will, but for some, their beneficiaries might not be entitled

to receive their assets because their instructions aren't in writing. Just like pretty much everything in life has gone digital, if you're tied to your phone, people assume that they can do a selfie video or they can write out a text and that would automatically count as a will. But estate law remains rooted to ink on paper. We'll talk to Wall Street Journal personal finance reporter, Ashley Eblick, after the

break. The Goldman Sachs Podcast featuring exchanges on rates, inflation, and U.S. recession risk. Exchanges on the market impact of AI. For the sharpest analysis on forces driving the markets and the economy, count on exchanges between the leading minds at Goldman Sachs. New episodes every week. Listen now. Some family members are finding out that wills aren't legally binding if they're recorded on video or audio. Wall Street Journal personal finance reporter, Ashley Ebling joins me.

Ashley, what happens if someone dies and they don't have a will? Actually, only about half of Americans have wills. And the big mistake they're making is maybe they don't understand that state law in that case determines who gets your assets. And the laws are changing. It varies from states. It could be 100% to your spouse.

It could be 50% to your spouse, 50% to your children. If there's no spouse or children, it generally goes up the line to parents or horizontally to siblings, but it's really out of your control. So if you want it to be in your control, you need a will. For years, last wills and testaments were written on paper. Why have some people turned to video or audio

to spell out how they want their assets passed down? Just like pretty much everything in life has gone digital. If you're tied to your phone, people assume that they can do a selfie video or they can write out a text and that would automatically count as a will. But a state law remains rooted to ink on paper. You wrote about a man in Montana who recorded his will on video and then he died. What happened there? So in that case he made his intentions clear looking directly in the camera with a selfie video saying he wanted all his assets to go to his brother. Tragically after a motorcycle accident just a few days later he was struck by a

car and killed when a first responder was allegedly speeding to the accident site. The case went up to the Montana Supreme Court and they when a first responder was allegedly speeding to the accident site. The case went up to the Montana Supreme Court and they said a video is not a document or writing under their wills law. So that meant that instead of everything going to the brother, the deceased's daughter, who wasn't even mentioned in the video, she is the one under intestacy laws who would stand to inherit. Why did the court say what it did? So the court has to interpret the law and the law in

Montana talks about writings intended as a will. They basically said a video is not a writing in that case, but doesn't count. Does it have to be neatly typed and notarized for it to be acceptable? The gold standard is you sign a paper copy in a lawyer's office and there are witnesses and a notary. The notary is really important, you know, as an extra safeguard for it to hold up in court. Not necessarily legally required, but still a good idea.

And in some cases it is legally required. But again, you state by state. But the point is it actually doesn't have to be typed up. It can be written out on a napkin, stuffed in a couch. In one case, there was this New Jersey appellate court honored an amendment to a will that was actually written in blood, bizarrely. And that counted? That counted. Why haven't states accepted wills in video or audio form?

Among the old-fashioned bar associations, the estate lawyers who are rooted to tradition, there's a big debate because some really feel like there should be the modernization of these laws and it should be moving forward into technology, but others want to keep it rooted in the past. So they're afraid of fraud. Someone could theoretically be in the room off camera influencing the person who's making the will. Some estate lawyers and especially these like online estate websites,

they are pushing for the new laws. And then even other estate lawyers are saying that the idea is with electronic wills that more people will write wills. So you mentioned there could be fraud, could be deep fakes. As the talk continues about possibly legalizing video or audio forms of wills, are there safeguards or some sort of electronic regulations talking about being in place to prevent deep faking or things like that? So for now, there's something in a handful of states they allow electronic wills, and

that's still different from a recording. There, you can create, sign, and store a will digitally. It still has to be text, not audio or video. What if you text your will to someone texting it on your phone instead of actually writing it out? Is that legal? In an appellate case in Michigan, the court did there accept a digital will in the form of a note in the Evernote app on the deceased's phone. So that's an example where a writing on a phone can count. There was another case in Montana that also just was ruled on this

fall, and there there was a text message, but it was not accepted as a will because they said there wasn't enough intent in the message for it to count. If somebody has spelled out their last will and testament in a recording, what steps should they take to create an acceptable document? Clearly check out your state's rules and then make sure yours meets the requirements. The safe thing is still doing the old fashioned on paper, wet signature, meaning you sign it in ink. The other big thing people really need to know, and this is whether it's an electronic

will or a paper will, is to make sure someone knows where it is. What kinds of online tools are available to help people draw up a will? There are actually a lot of online websites that will help. There's one called Freewill that's free, like it says, and on that site still printed out and then take it to get notarized depending with what the rules are for your state. And then another one called Trust and Will has simple wills. These are wills for people with fairly simple situations. And they actually allow electronic wills in the states that allow them and they have a digital storage vault on their website.

Do the online companies that help people design wills, are they getting requests to put their will in video or audio? Absolutely. First of all, they have like thousands of people who are using the basic electronic wills and the pure digital wills. And they say that they're getting more and more requests. And it is particularly from younger people because they say, why do I have to go to a lawyer's office to do this? Why do I need to do it on paper? That's WSJ reporter Ashley Ebling. And that's it for your money briefing. Tomorrow we'll have our weekly markets wrap up, What's News in Markets.

And then we'll be back on Monday with the first episode of our special series, Money Moves for the New Year. This episode was produced by Ariana Asparu. I'm your host, J.R. Whalen. Jessica Fenton and Michael Laval wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Melanie Roy. Aisha Al-Mulzim is our development producer. Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is The Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. Thanks for listening.