Ask the Expert: Wills and beneficiaries

I'm in my 80s. Shortly after my wife died, I wrote a will dividing my estate equally between two heirs. I have since decided to designate one of these two people as the beneficiary of one or more of my accounts. As a result, that person will get a greater share of my estate. Is my will going to override my new beneficiary assignments?

No. The instructions in a will are ignored if they conflict with the beneficiary designations, or with the joint ownership status on your accounts.

Contrary to popular belief, your will doesn't control the disposition of everything you own. Assets jointly owned with right of survivorship always go to the surviving owner. And a beneficiary designation determines who inherits an account, regardless of what your will says. The only exception is a bank account "in trust for" a named beneficiary - an account sometimes called a Totten trust. The beneficiary designation on a Totten trust can be overridden by your will - but only if the will specifically cancels the designation, says Stephen J. Silverberg, a Uniondale estate lawyer. In other words, your will would have to say something like: "I hereby revoke the beneficiary designation of my savings account 䕧890 at First Capitalist Bank, and instead leave that account to my niece Emily Tompkins."

These rules matter because if you ignore them, you may inadvertently disinherit a loved one. Your will may divide everything between your two children, for example, but if your estate consists entirely of IRAs listing your son as the beneficiary, and a house and a bank CD that you own jointly with him, your daughter won't get anything.

The bottom line Your will only controls disposition of assets that are in your sole name and have no designated beneficiaries.

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