Sheldon Lazarow

Most people don't have an estate plan. They mean to get one. They know they should. They just haven't gotten around to it yet.

And then something happens.

If you die in Arizona without a will or trust — what lawyers call dying "intestate" — you do not get to decide what happens to your home, your money, your belongings, or your children. Arizona law decides for you. And the law's answer is almost never the same as what you actually would have wanted.

Here is what your family faces when there is no plan.

The State of Arizona Writes Your Will for You

Arizona has a law called intestate succession. It determines who inherits your estate when you die without a will. The formula is rigid and based entirely on your legal relationships — not your actual wishes, not the relationships that mattered most to you, not what you would have chosen.

Here is how it generally works:

If you are married: - Your separate property goes partly to your spouse and partly to your children — in shares determined by statute - Community property goes to your spouse - But the split depends on whether your children are also your spouse's children — the calculations get complicated fast

If you are not married: - Everything goes to your children in equal shares - If you have no children, it goes to your parents - If your parents are gone, it goes to your siblings - And so on down the family tree

What intestate succession cannot do: - Leave anything to a longtime partner you never married - Leave a larger share to the child who cared for you - Leave a smaller share to the child you were estranged from - Leave anything to a close friend, a charity, or anyone outside the legal family tree - Follow any of the specific wishes you had but never wrote down

The law is blunt. It does not know your family. It does not know your story. It simply divides assets according to a formula.

Your Family Will Go Through Probate

Without a trust in place, your estate must go through probate — the court process for distributing a deceased person's assets.

In Arizona, probate can be:

Simple — if your estate is small and your family agrees on everything. Even then, it takes time and involves court filings, fees, and public records.

Complicated — if your estate is larger, if there is real property, if family members disagree, or if anyone challenges how assets should be distributed. Complicated probate can take months or years and cost significant money in attorney fees and court costs.

Contentious — if the absence of clear instructions leads to family conflict. Without a document that says exactly what you wanted, disagreements can become lawsuits. Relationships that survived a lifetime can fracture in the months after a death.

Every dollar spent on probate is a dollar that does not go to your family. Every month spent in probate court is a month your family cannot fully move forward.

A properly funded trust avoids probate entirely. Your assets transfer directly to your beneficiaries — privately, quickly, and without court involvement.

Nobody Has Legal Authority to Act

Here is something that surprises many families: when a loved one becomes incapacitated — in the hospital, unable to communicate, unable to make decisions — someone needs legal authority to act on their behalf. To talk to doctors. To access financial accounts. To make medical decisions.

Without a durable power of attorney and a healthcare directive, nobody has that authority automatically. Not a spouse. Not an adult child. Nobody.

To get that authority, the family must go to court for a guardianship or conservatorship proceeding — a formal legal process that takes time and money, in the middle of an already devastating situation.

A durable power of attorney and a healthcare directive — two documents that take a matter of hours to prepare — eliminate this problem entirely. The person you choose has the authority you grant them, immediately, without court involvement.

If a family member is in the hospital right now and there is no power of attorney in place, call us today. There may still be time to address this.

Your Minor Children Have No Designated Guardian

If you have minor children and you die without a will, a court will decide who raises them.

The court will try to make the best decision it can. But the court does not know your children. It does not know which family member you would have chosen, which values matter to you, which living situation would be best. It will make a decision based on the information available — and that decision may not be the one you would have made.

A will allows you to name a guardian for your minor children. It allows you to explain your wishes. It gives the court clear direction.

It is arguably the most important reason for young parents to have an estate plan — and one of the most commonly overlooked.

The Family Fighting You Didn't Expect

In 50 years of legal practice — including years spent as a trial attorney litigating cases — Sheldon Lazarow has seen one pattern repeat itself more than almost any other:

Families that were close, loving, and functional during a parent's lifetime fall apart in the months after that parent dies without a clear plan.

It is not because the family members are bad people. It is because grief, money, and ambiguity are a volatile combination. When nobody knows exactly what the deceased wanted — because they never wrote it down — everyone fills in the blank with what they believe, or hope, or need.

And those beliefs conflict.

A clear, well-drafted estate plan does not just protect your assets. It protects your family relationships. It removes the ambiguity that fuels conflict. It says, clearly and legally, what you wanted — and it leaves no room for competing interpretations.

The Online Form Problem

You may have seen advertisements for online estate planning services — websites that let you create a will or trust in minutes for a low flat fee.

These services exist. And for people with extremely simple situations and no real assets, they may provide some baseline protection. But there are serious limitations.

A form cannot ask follow-up questions. It cannot account for the specific dynamics of your family. It cannot adjust for Arizona's community property laws. It cannot consider what happens if your primary beneficiary dies before you. It cannot design around a blended family, a family member with special needs, or a property held in multiple states.

And most importantly — a form cannot sit across the table from you, understand your situation, and tell you when something you've chosen might not work the way you think it will.

Mr. Lazarow has reviewed online estate plans that looked complete on the surface and were deeply flawed underneath. He has also reviewed estate plans drafted by other attorneys that were technically correct but failed to reflect what the client actually wanted.

The documents are only as good as the conversation that preceded them.

What a True Estate Plan Looks Like

When you work with the Lazarow Law Firm, you leave with:

• A revocable living trust (if appropriate) — keeping your estate out of probate and transferring assets directly to your beneficiaries
• A pour-over will — capturing anything that wasn't in the trust
• A durable power of attorney — giving someone legal authority over your finances if you become incapacitated
• A healthcare power of attorney — giving someone authority to make medical decisions on your behalf
• A living will / advance directive — documenting your wishes about end-of-life medical care
• A complete plain-English booklet explaining every document and exactly what to do with each one
• Everything in a complete three-ring Estate notebook and on a thumb drive
• Specific instructions for the hospital, for your family, for the moment when these documents actually need to be used

Every document is custom drafted. Nothing is a form. Everything is explained until you understand it completely.

The Conversation Nobody Wants to Have – Until They Have to

Estate planning requires thinking about things most people prefer not to think about. Incapacity. Death. What happens to the people you love when you are no longer there.

It is understandable to put it off. Almost everyone does.

But the families who come to Mr. Lazarow after a crisis — after a death with no plan, after a hospitalization with no power of attorney, after a family fight over an ambiguous will — all say the same thing:

"I wish we had done this sooner."

The good news is that you can do it now. The conversation is easier than you think, and the peace of mind on the other side of it is real.

Serving Tucson and All of Southern Arizona

Lazarow Law Firm, P.L.C. helps individuals and families throughout Tucson, Oro Valley, Marana, Green Valley, Sierra Vista, Bisbee, Benson, Douglas, Nogales, Florence, and all of Pima, Cochise, Santa Cruz, and Pinal counties create estate plans that actually protect them.

📞 (520) 623-5856 ✉ [email protected]m 

The first conversation is free. Let's make sure your family is protected.

Sheldon Lazarow is a Tucson estate planning attorney with 50 years of legal experience, including a background as a civil trial attorney with direct experience in estate litigation. He is the founder of Lazarow Law Firm, P.L.C., located at 25 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85705