trying to make a will for my collection prior to deploying

I

ISC

Moderator
I will probably be deploying to the middle east in the next year or two and want to make plans for my substantial gun collection. I want my sons to get them and not have them sold for 1/3 of their value to a dealer by my ex wife if I die.

I am assuming some sort of trust would be in order. Added to the value of my guns, vehicles, and house, they'd be getting my $450,000 SGLI insurance. I also have a enough mags, ammo, survival type preps, and gun parts to stock a small gun show or decent sized gun shop.

My ex wife has ironically recently become a believer in preparedness and I'd be OK with leaving her control of most of the food and other perishable stuff, but I want my 8 and 14 year old to inheirit the guns, ammo, and gear. Its probably worth $15K-$20K at market prices and alot of it just isn't available anymore (ie 3 cases of South African .308 or complete sets of M44s, Mausers, SKSs, and AKs)

Where is a good place to start. I am in my last year of college and am broke, so don't say get a lawyer. I can get some help from JAG but they'll mostly just review anything I create and give advice, and I would just as soon not let my command know the size, scope, and value of my collection. The idea of my ex or her boyfriend trading my Albanian SKS for an ounce of weed pisses me off.
 
It depends partly on where you live. If your sons are underage and your ex-wife is living she will get control of everything to distribute when they come of age in some places.

Get one of those kits you can pick up at Office Depot. They are pretty simple to use.

I would say your best bet would be to leave them to a responsible adult that can be trusted to pass them on to your children. I will volunteer for that position. Just private me if you need full name and address. :)
 
I would start with groups like VFW to ask about local help, another you could look at is Legal Zoom.com. You most likely need some one to hold the firearms in trust for the children, and do that before you leave because if it gets into probate they will most likely be taken by the state.
 
My lawschool does a good deal of legal aid of this type. They have one program specifically for servicemen in need of legal assistance. I'll e-mail a professor I know participates in it and see if they can help.
 
As much as you may not want to hear it, get a lawyer to draw up a will, have the guns put into a trust and stored at a secure location, (local gun shop willing to store guns, bank deposit boxes).

Those will in a box kits are better then nothing but is your ex gets a decent lawyer they wont hold up. Sell one of your guns to fund it if you have too.
 
Get one of those kits you can pick up at Office Depot. They are pretty simple to use.
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Yeah, the kits suck, just like the internet stuff sucks, you'll get what you pay for, and they'll justly anger the probate judge who has to deal with how screwed up/non-specific/contrary-to-your-State's-probate-laws that the stupid kit is. So spend the money and do it right. Take $500.00, go to a lawyer, and ask him or her the best way to do this; I'm thinking of a Will with a springing trust. The will will direct your executor (who will be anyone other than your ex -- heck, you could name the lawyer as the executor, and a local bank as the contingent executor in the event that the lawyer is unwilling or unable to serve) to create a trust for the benefit of your children from the residue of your estate, according to the terms of your Will; the residue will consist of, among other things, your firearms. It all depends on what your State's laws mandate.

You'll also need to review the beneficiary designation of your life insurance with the lawyer; if you name your children as the beneficiaries, the proceeds will be non-probate assests, and will probably be controlled by your ex as the conservator of your children. Once again, the lawyer can help you w/options about designating your trust as the beneficiary.

Office depot/legal zoom/internet garbage. :barf: Lawyers make buckets of money fighting over estates that were set up with that garbage. So do it right, hire somebody who has a license to practice the law in your state to set this stuff up, and get it done correctly. ;)

Edited to add:

Where is a good place to start. I am in my last year of college and am broke, so don't say get a lawyer.
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My friend, if you have $15,000 worth of firearms, I'll suggest that it would be entirely worth it to sell a gun or two for lawyer funds. That's the smart thing to do....
 
you don't have one single family member you can trust to leave the guns with and give to your kids later?i'd just pack it all up and store it at my parents or brothers house with instructions.that won't cost a dime.i'd also tell the kids about it so they know to ask for the stuff later.
 
You are correct that it would be much better to set up a trust, than to get a will made.

Is there not some relative that you can rely on to act as Trustee until your boys become older? Or perhaps a good close friend that you can trust?

That is the key thing you need at this point: an honorable person that you can have act as trustee of the trust.

.
 
TRUST. Set up a trust.

Make your children the beneficiaries and someone you trust the executor until they turn 21. A properly set up trust will keep your property out of probate court. A will may be better than nothing, but things would still end up in probate where a judge may say "I'm not giving a bunch of guns to minors" and then your ex gets them. As someone else said contact law schools or veterens groups for help. Who knows a good lawyer willing to help might belong to the local VFW post :)
 
Update

Got an e-mail back from the professor I was talking about and he pointed me in the right direction. I'll e-mail them today.

ISC, PM me your e-mail so they can contact you if they can help.
 
Get one of those kits you can pick up at Office Depot. They are pretty simple to use.
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Please don't. That is a terrible idea. Neither the forms nor anything you read from an anonymous source on the net is legal advise.

As Fremmer suggests, you are doing something important. Don't let a couple hundred dollars that an attorney may let you pay over time be the difference between doing it the right way and the ineffective way.

I do lots of discounted and free work for veterans and those still in service. Find one of those.
 
I'm not completely opposed to getting legal help, I just want to figure out what to try to acheive before I walk into a $200/hr meeting.
 
Please don't. That is a terrible idea. Neither the forms nor anything you read from an anonymous source on the net is legal advise.
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We have a lawyer that is not only my lawyer but my business partner in one business.

We do a lot of legal stuff. More often than not, the forms in those packs are identical to the final product we have custom written. You just have to get the ones specific to your state. Especially if you get the ones you print on your computer.

I know lawyers hate that, but it is just the case. We did some work recently for our LLC and afterwards I compared it to some we used a local lawyer for a couple years ago and the finished documents were almost identical. The biggest difference, the computer program cost me $99 and the lawyer cost me over $500.
 
I know lawyers hate that...
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I doubt that. The profession makes more from laymen doing their own work than from before the fact planning.

Sometimes, maybe even often, people doing their own work turns out fine. The times it doesn't work out can be terribly expensive.
 
Sometimes, maybe even often, people doing their own work turns out fine. The times it doesn't work out can be terribly expensive.
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I would not try and do a corporate merger with it, but as far as simple legal documents go they work just fine. Simple contracts, wills, and other things are pretty easy and often lawyers use very similar programs to produce the same papers...or at least their legal aids so. My aunt has been one for years and she is the one that turned me on to the programs.
 
I would not try and do a corporate merger with it, but as far as simple legal documents go they work just fine.
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Except when they don't.

PBP, I am an attorney and I am not giving ISC legal advice. I don't know the state in which he resides, and I haven't interviewed him. I wouldn't consider it ethical to give him a slipshod opinion, worth everything he paid for it.

Just knowing an attorney isn't really an excellent basis for giving people you don't know legal advise. It can do real harm.

Have a good weekend.
 
Just knowing an attorney isn't really an excellent basis for giving people you don't know legal advise. It can do real harm
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That is why I did not just do it based on knowing an attorney. I did it based on the fact that my aunt (a legal aide) told me she uses similar programs while creating documents for her boss (an attorney) and the fact that I have used both and had almost identical products at the end of it...with far from identical costs. It is called relating real world experiences based on true observations. :)
 
Talk to the JAG office where you are stationed

They ought to be able to give you valid advice on how to go about what you want done. And they are free for servicemen, or at least they were back in the dark ages when I was in the Army.

What do have to lose?
 
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