Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Georgia

You start by not posting homework assignments on LawGuru, and if you do, you at least get the facts straight (if the will burned up in the lawyer's office obviously it wasn't found in your house).

This sounds like a poorly drafted law school exam question rather than homework.

There are some simple solutions to the question you posed:

(1) As noted by Attorney Ashman, the original of the will cannot be in the attorney's office and your house. However, what I would suggest is that the original be stored at one or the other of the locations and that a copy be kept at the other. If the original is destroyed, it may be possible to probate the copy. Make lots of copies and give them to very close friends and family members. More copies in unlikely places serves as a deterrent to nefarious acts by greedy next of kin.

(2) Not all lawyers store wills for a client. If they do, they may store the wills off site so it will not matter if the lawyer's office burns down.

(3) You can store your will in a safe place (fireproof safe, the freezer or a safe deposit box). Tell the executor of the will where the will is located and ensure that the will can be accessed by the executor. You may even want to provide the executor with a copy of the will. If the will changes over time or the executor changes, make sure any executor has the latest copy of the will

(3) Depending on where you live, clerks in some counties will accept a will in advance for filing. They charge a small fee. The clerk will then give you a receipt for the will. You can give it to your executor for safekeeping.

(4) If you are as wealthy and paranoid as Howard Hughes, you can certainly afford to spend the money to have the will properly drafted by a big law firm and you can name one of the attorneys (if they are willing) as the executor. It will be very unlikely that their office will burn down as it could be if the will was drafted on the cheap by some small town lawyer for $100.

or

(5) You can pay an attorney to draft a a revocable living trust and convey your big assets (houses, cars, stock broker accounts etc.) to the trust. The trust is a private document (which you can keep copies of) and you can name anyone as the trustee. Since the trust will own things (and not you) if your greedy next of kin thinks that they will inherit under the intestacy law, they will find a nasty surprise upon your death. If you own nothing, there is nothing to probate and they inherit nothing under the intestacy laws. The bulk of your assets will then pass as per the terms of the trust and there will be very little that the greedy relative can do about it.

No method is foolproof. Other ways you can protect yourself are to die broke. With proper estate planning throughout your life, if you reach retirement age, you can start to turn assets into revenue streams. The advantage of this is that (a) you will not outlive your money; and (b) there will be no probate estate for anyone to fight over at your death. Of course, this will require you to be diligent and then none of us knows the exact moment we will pass and there is not always time to plan ahead.