Sorry for your loss, I have lost both my parents and both my wifes parents so I know the difficulties of handling estate matters. I think the valuation method someone mentioned previously might be your best option at this point. If the discussion turns to dollars and cents peoples opinions change pretty quickly.
As far as what is a part of the will and what is not, when we helped my mother in law with her will the attorney that wrote it up had a seperate section for Power of Attorney, specific items, and end of life instructions. She never did anything with the specific items but signed the others. Since it was only my wife and her worthless brother there were no disputes on any items.
The other thing that helped avoid probate and the costs of it was that for every account or investment she had she utilized the benificiary section of each one to provide a pay on death receipient. This means that it all avoids probate. All we had to do in the end was get a muniment of title for her house and that gave my wife the right to sell or transfer it without going to probate. We paid $1,500 for that where probate would have cost closer to $9,000.
As far as what is a part of the will and what is not, when we helped my mother in law with her will the attorney that wrote it up had a seperate section for Power of Attorney, specific items, and end of life instructions. She never did anything with the specific items but signed the others. Since it was only my wife and her worthless brother there were no disputes on any items.
The other thing that helped avoid probate and the costs of it was that for every account or investment she had she utilized the benificiary section of each one to provide a pay on death receipient. This means that it all avoids probate. All we had to do in the end was get a muniment of title for her house and that gave my wife the right to sell or transfer it without going to probate. We paid $1,500 for that where probate would have cost closer to $9,000.
