My stepson passed away and I want his wife and kids to inherit everything
My stepson came into my life when he was five and I never once thought of him as anything other than my son and losing him last year has been the hardest thing I've ever had to carry. His wife has been incredible through all of it and those grandkids are the only reason I get out of bed some mornings.
I own a home, run a small business and have savings I've been building for years and every bit of it I want to go to them but I found out recently that without a will or a trust in place the state has its own ideas about where your assets end up and his wife and kids wouldn't necessarily be first in line. Turns out the years I spent raising him count for nothing on paper and his kids have no automatic legal right to inherit from me without the right documents in place.
I've been looking into wills and trusts and I'm not sure which one actually protects them the way I want or whether I need both and I'd really appreciate knowing where you even begin with something like this.