Things you need to tell your lawyer when preparing a will

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

Following documents and lists are required for the will:

a. A complete list of all your assets, including bank accounts, securities, bonds, business ownership, money owed to you as well as your valuable personal effects such jewelry, furs, art objects and the like.

b. An itemization of your real estate together with its value and any joint ownership.

c. A list of your obligations i.e. mortgages, loans etc.

d. Any inheritance your expect to receive before your death.

e. A statement of any instruments such as trusts and wills of others in which you have the power to appoint.

f. A statement of approximate income and general standard of living over the past few years.

g. Records of insurance of all kinds.

h. Family information, such as ages, state of health, adopted children, marital problems, family feuds etc. 

The Importance of your Will; Your Estate and Death

Your will may be the most important paper you will ever sign. It is one of your few opportunities to direct the distribution of your property amongst your survivors. Its significance depends less on the size of your estate than the kind of assets you leave and on matters you want taken care of after your death. It tells your family, business associates and the state whom you want to administer your property and other assets, to whom you want to leave them and the conditions under which people you name are to receive them. It also concerns such vital family matters as who will be the guardian of your minor children.

If you die without a will you may saddle your family with needless work and trouble, heavy administrative expenses that a will may prevent and very likely estate tax liabilities that eat up much of the money otherwise available for your family's support. For example if you or your wife fail to execute a will, the survivor might be deprived of the estate tax advantage of a full marital deduction.

Timur Kuran's column in the New York Times

Book Recommendation: The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East


(On Long Divergence- How Islamic Law held back the middle east an excellent book which I recommend wholeheartedly-YLH)

By Timur Kuran

To start with the underutilization of female labor in the Middle East, we need to distinguish between pre-industrial and modern times. It is only in the past century or two that the abilities of Middle Eastern women have been underutilized by global standards of the day.

Until industrialization, women were restricted players in economic life everywhere. In western Europe, as in the Middle East, high birthrates kept women focused on childrearing and household chores, limiting their participation in commerce and finance. They did control assets, of course, including real estate. Although no systematic comparative study exists, there are grounds for believing that Middle Eastern women controlled more assets, not less, than Western women. Most critically, whereas Middle Eastern women received around one-third of all estates, in substantial parts of the West women did not share at all in inheritance settlements.