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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

There are actually a lot of online websites that will help.

There's one called Free Will that's free, like it says, and on that site still print it out and then take it to get notarized, depending what the rules are for your state.

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