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If you are married and have children, or living parents, they will receive a portion of your estate. If you are unmarried and have no children, your parents inherit everything. If you are unmarried, have no children and your parents are deceased, your siblings inherit everything.

If you have a surviving spouse and have no surviving children, parents, or grandchildren, your spouse gets the entire estate. If there are surviving children, parents, or grandchildren ? even if they are not related to the surviving spouse ? the spouse will not receive the entire estate.

A handwritten will must be dated and signed at the end of the document. A formal will can be typewritten. It must be signed and witnessed by at least two people. (Keep in mind that a beneficiary under the will should never be a witness to its signing.)

If he did not have a will, state statutes, known as intestacy laws, would provide who has priority to inherit the assets. In our example, if the husband had a will then the house would pass to whomever is to receive his assets pursuant to that will. That may very well be his wife, even if her name is not on the title.

Is the Five Wishes advance directive a legal document? Yes. It was written with the help of the American Bar Association's Commission on Law & Aging. It meets the legal requirements of 46 states, but is used widely in all 50, and a federal law requires medical care providers to honor patient wishes as expressed.

However, if you die with a spouse and no living parents or descendants, your spouse gets 100% of your estate. But if you have living parents, your spouse gets the first $150,000 of your estate, then three-quarters of the balance. Your parents would inherit the rest.