Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Virginia

Re: Married couple w/children one will or two?

It is much cleaner to do two wills that include provisions for guardian(s) for the kids in the event the other parent has not survived. The drafting challenges for such a "joint will" far outweigh the advantages to be gained, if any, in that approach, and as a consequence would be more expensive.

The important thing is to have someone identified as a guardian.

Re: Married couple w/children one will or two?

First, let me say that the contents of your will

is far less important than (A) good overall

planning for your estate and family plans, (B)

properly executing the will with witness, witness

affidavits, etc., etc. to make sure the will is

valid, and (C) understanding what the will means

so that you can be alert to changes that are

needed. So there are many reasons that it is

not advisable to do a will without an attorney.

There are many attorneys who will charge a

relatively modest amount, only several hundred

dollars, which includes the more difficult

tasks of having a will signing ceremony (like

buying a house) to make sure it is validly signed.

However, as to the question, assuming you are

going to do it yourself, it is possible to do

a joint will but it is usually not done, mainly

for tax reasons. In order to take maximum

advantage of the estate tax exemptions for

transfers between spouses (even though most

people won't have enough money to pay estate

taxes, but you never know going in what could

happen), it is customary to write two "mirror"

wills which agree with each other and are

pretty much duplicative of each other.