Leaving your estate to the people and organizations you want to leave it to is your choice. Our lawyers can be there to support you in your decisions and help plan to make sure your charitable bequests are carried out according to your wishes.
Giving money and assets to a charity you love can be complicated. You need to see that your will is properly written to help protect your wishes and deal with any contests or complaints, especially if you plan to leave your entire estate to charity and not your children or other apparent heirs.
Call our charitable planning attorneys at Flake & Flake today at (702) 829-5731 for a free review of your potential needs.
What Do You Need to Do to Leave Your Estate to Charity?
Before your will can effectively pass your estate – in whole or in part – to a charity of your choice, you should take these steps:
Go Over Your Plans with a Lawyer
Our charitable planning attorneys can help you take a look at what assets and money you have, then go over your options for what you can do with your estate when you pass.
Even if you want to leave something to a charity, remember that it does not have to be all or nothing. You can potentially leave the bulk of your estate to a charity while still providing something for your spouse and heirs. You can also do the inverse and give most of your money to your heirs but still include something for a charity you care about.
Go Over Plans with the Charity
While this is optional, many people give to charities with the hope that they can use property or assets in their operations, use funding to enhance physical premises, or use that fund for specific purposes.
Working with the charity you plan on giving to, you can potentially participate in planning and even get something named after you, such as a scholarship fund or an annual grant. Perhaps nothing builds a stronger legacy than working with a charity or organization to perpetuate their services with your name attached.
But, of course, you need to talk to the charity about these plans.
Consider Discussing Plans with Your Family
Especially if you will be leaving your children or spouse out of your will entirely, you may want to discuss this decision with them. When your family understands your wishes and decisions, they are less likely to try to challenge them.
By discussing things in advance, you might change your mind once you get their input. You may also decide to change how much of your estate is going to charity, potentially leaving something in trust to support your spouse, children, or grandchildren.
Write Your Will
Our lawyers must draft a strong will to ensure your wishes are specified and protected from challenge.
Draw Up Other Documents
You may also need to put money into trusts to have them managed the way you want. For example, you can potentially put money and assets into a trust while you are still alive, then name the charity as the successor when you pass. This can pass the assets and money to the charity without having to disclose them publicly in probate if they pass through your will.
Using a trust can also help you assert more specific control over how the money is managed, or potentially prevent the charity from getting all of it at once. That could cause them tax or budgetary concerns, and is part of why it is important to talk to the charity about how to get them the money.
Protecting a Charitable Bequest from Challenges
Members of your family might have been expecting to get your estate when you pass, especially if they were your next of kin. If, instead, they find out months after you die that they get nothing, and it is all going to charity, they may be angry enough to try to challenge your will.
Can Family Members Challenge a Charitable Will?
If you die without a will, then Nevada law dictates who gets your estate under our “intestacy” law. This typically splits your estate between your spouse and children or other close family members, depending on what your family structure looks like.
These “intestate heirs” listed there can typically challenge a will if they have a good reason to say it should be invalidated so that the intestacy law is used instead.
If you had a prior will that did name other heirs, the heirs named under that will may try to reinstate that old will. Generally, writing a new will invalidates an old will by specifically revoking it, but if the new will was improper, the heirs under the old will can potentially challenge it.
Grounds for Will Challenges
Typically, wills can only be invalidated if the challengers have a good reason to invalidate it, usually limited to these issues:
- The will did not meet all legal requirements (e.g., being signed by the testator and witnessed by two witnesses).
- The testator (the person whose will it is) lacked “testamentary capacity,” i.e., they were not mentally competent to write the will.
- The will was written under coercion or threats.
Generally, our charitable will lawyers will help check that none of these issues were present before we write any wills.
Other Protections
If the assets pass to the charity without a will, then they cannot be challenged by challenging the will. For example, if you give everything to the charity by putting it in trust, then it will not go through a will, and whether the will is valid or not would not change that fact.
Can You Change Your Old Will to Give More to Charity?
Generally, we want to do everything we can to avoid there being more than one will out there that could be used as a potential challenge to your will. That generally means we will revoke the old will(s) and write a brand new one to replace it, rather than trying to edit or amend the old will.
Can You Leave Your Estate to Family with Instructions to Use it For Charity?
You can leave your money to trusted family and give them instructions on how to use it for charitable purposes, but you are not there to enforce that request. However, you may be able to put the money in trust and name trusted family members as the trustees.
This could give them specific instructions on what to do with the money, and prevent them from spending it on themselves or other purposes.
Call Our Charitable Will Planning Lawyers in Las Vegas Today
Call (702) 829-5731 for a free case review with Flake & Flake’s charitable planning attorneys today.
