Ashlea Ebeling

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2,002 appearances 38 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2022 last heard Feb 2025

Ashlea Ebeling’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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WSJ Your Money Briefing · Estate Planning Via Text or Video. What Counts as a Will? · 20 Dec 2024 podcast

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.

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.

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 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.

So the court has to interpret the law and the law in Montana talks about writings intended as a will.

And they basically said a video is not a writing in that case.

It doesn't count.

The gold standard is you sign a paper copy in a lawyer's office and their 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, 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.

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