Every document you need for a complete estate plan.

Originally published: October 29, 2020 | Last updated: March 26, 2026

You need to create your Last Will and Testament as your first action to defend your family members who matter to you. The system lets you establish vital appointments while you state how your property should be divided. The document represents only one element which forms the complete estate plan. USLegalWills.com provides a single platform which lets users create all their necessary documents.

What Documents Make Up a Complete Estate Plan?

What Is a Last Will and Testament?

People create Last Will and Testament documents to fulfill two essential purposes through their legal documents. First, it makes key appointments – naming an Executor to carry out instructions and a guardian for minor children . Second, it describes the distribution of your assets through specific bequests, percentage shares, or equal divisions.

The Executor you choose needs to find and protect your assets while also managing estate operations which include tax responsibilities and debt payments and funeral costs and asset distribution to your beneficiaries.

What Happens If You Don’t Have a Will?

Death without a Will creates major problems for the people who survive you.

• Your assets become unprotected because there is no person who takes responsibility for them and this situation could lead to family disputes about who should control these assets.
• The court must first appoint an estate administrator through its slow judicial process before it can begin its operations.
• Guardians for children under age 18 receive court appointments through judges who make decisions based on restricted details.
• Your estate receives distribution through state intestacy laws which follow their own rules instead of your personal desires.

Dying without a Will creates two main problems which include the practical issues and the lost chance to leave a meaningful impact through charitable donations and educational funding and family heritage preservation. An estate without a plan will have its assets eaten up by court expenses before the law determines how to share them.

Where Can You Get a Will?

Three approaches exist:

1. The process of writing your own document while using a DIY kit provides a free option yet it produces documents which courts might not recognize as valid.
2. The attorney who specializes in estate planning handles complex estates but charges between $500 and $1,000 for multiple visits to their office.
3. The Online Will writing service provides users with a professional document for $35 to $100 which they can complete in 20 minutes while following exact wording from lawyer-prepared Wills.

USLegalWills.com charges $49.95 for a Will which lets you create pet trusts and lifetime interest trusts and charitable bequests and also includes non-US asset arrangements. For more on pricing, see our article on how much a Will costs .

What Is a Financial Power of Attorney?

A Financial Power of Attorney (PoA) names someone to handle your financial affairs. Key types include:

• The Specific PoA allows you to authorize someone for a single business deal such as when you need them to sell your car during your time abroad.
• General PoA – covers all financial matters on your behalf
• Springing/Enduring PoA – comes into effect only upon incapacity, as determined by two attending physicians

You need to obtain a general enduring (springing) Financial PoA for your estate planning purposes. You must have mental competence when creating this document.

What Happens Without a Financial PoA?

Without this document, if you lose capacity:

• The elderly population faces two major risks because they become more likely to experience fraud and coercion.
• The healthcare costs which include nursing home expenses become unmanageable when legitimate bills remain unpaid.
• Your financial assets remain unprotected because no person possesses legal authority to protect them.
• The court needs family members to submit petitions for authority which results in expensive and lengthy processes.

The Financial PoA at USLegalWills.com costs $29.95. State laws vary significantly – for example, in Florida since 2011 you cannot create a springing financial PoA. Make sure any template you use is state-specific and up to date.

What Is a Living Will?

A Living Will consists of two distinct documents which function independently:

1. Healthcare Power of Attorney (Healthcare Proxy) – names a single person with decision-making powers when you cannot communicate and physicians need to make treatment decisions
2. Advance Directives – your expressed wishes for treatment in an irreversible terminal condition: resuscitation, life support, tube feeding, and pain medication

Family members need to make these tough decisions which break their hearts. Your wishes documentation creates a wonderful present which frees others from the need to guess what you would have wanted.

USLegalWills.com offers the Living Will service for $19.95 which lets users finish their documents within ten minutes.

What Are Your Funeral Wishes?

People often believe their funeral preferences will appear in their Will document. There are two reasons this does not work:

• People can freely change their funeral preferences because these choices lack legal force and they don’t need to follow any formal procedures to update them.
• Your Will must go through probate before being accepted – by then your funeral is probably already over

The lack of written funeral instructions forces family members to decide about burial methods and ceremony arrangements and casket selection and obituary publication during their most vulnerable emotional state. Funeral homes may pressure them into expensive options. By expressing your wishes, you give guidance and relieve this burden.

The MyFuneral service at USLegalWills.com is free and covers burial preferences, ceremony details, obituary wishes, and other key topics.

Why Do You Need an Inventory of Your Assets?

Your Will does not include asset listings because property ownership tends to evolve throughout your life while probate makes your Will document accessible to the public. The Executor needs to have a separate inventory which functions independently from all other documents.

Your Executor will face an impossible mission because they need to discover each asset which includes physical items and bank holdings and investment portfolios and digital accounts that belong to the deceased person. They never really know the task is complete. Assets go undiscovered: cash stored at home, rarely used bank accounts, domain names, PayPal accounts, YouTube revenue.

The MyLifeLocker service at USLegalWills.com ($29.95) provides a complete Executor handbook that can be kept online for designated keyholders or printed as a PDF.

Do You Need a Revocable Living Trust?

Not usually. A Revocable Living Trust moves assets outside your estate to reduce probate fees. However:

• Probate fees in most states are not prohibitive
• The cost and time to set up a trust often outweighs the savings
• A trust generally requires legal expertise – not easily done online
• The process demands extended time and higher costs when you work on your estate plan.

The Pet Trust document exists independently from any Will because pet care provisions exist in all professional Will writing services.

How Do You Create Your Complete Estate Plan?

USLegalWills.com lets you create all five documents for a price which exceeds $100 by a small amount. For couples, the spouse receives a 40% discount. The entire process takes about one hour:

1. Will – 20 minutes ($49.95)
2. Financial Power of Attorney – 10 minutes ($29.95)
3. Living Will – 10 minutes ($19.95)
4. Funeral Wishes – 10 minutes (free)
5. Asset Inventory – varies ($29.95)

Get started today. Our customers show a universal pattern of relief because they have completed their document creation process.

Start Your Complete Estate Plan Now

Related Articles

• Last Will and Testament – What It Is, When You Need It, How to Write It
• Power of Attorney: It’s Written, But Is That Enough?
• Living Will: Definitions of Our Service
• Digital Assets – Meet LifeLocker
• How Much Does a Will Cost?
• Updating Your Will: When, How, and How Much?