Will & Guardianship Checklist
The plain-language list of what to put in place so your child is protected if something happens to you — from naming a guardian to the beneficiary forms that quietly override a will. Tick items off as you go, then print the summary and take it to an estate-planning attorney. Everything stays on your device.
Educational starting framework only — not legal advice, and it creates no legal document. The rules vary by state and country, so the specifics of every item belong with a licensed attorney where you live.
Will & Guardianship Checklist — prepared with HarborPlain (harborplain.com/tools/will-guardianship-checklist). Ticked items are done; the rest are open points to raise with an estate-planning attorney. Educational framework only — not legal advice.
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The essentials — do these first
0 of 4The four decisions that keep a court from making your family's biggest choices for you.
Why it matters: If both parents die without naming anyone, a judge chooses who raises your child — guided by local law and whoever steps forward, with no way to know what you would have wanted. Naming a guardian of the person keeps the single most important decision in your hands.
What’s involved: Choose the person you would genuinely trust to raise your child day to day — values, energy, location, and willingness all count, and the obvious choice on paper is not always the right one. Ask them directly before you write anything down. The nomination takes legal effect when it is recorded in your will.
Why it matters: Your first choice may be unable or unwilling to serve when the moment actually comes — health, distance, and family circumstances change over the years. Without an alternate on record, the decision falls back to the court after all.
What’s involved: Pick at least one more person or couple you would trust, have the same direct conversation with them, and record them in the same will as the alternate. Revisit both choices every few years — the right answer when your child is a newborn may not be the right answer at ten.
Why it matters: The will is the legal instrument that records your guardian nomination and says where your assets go. Without one, your jurisdiction's intestacy rules decide both — and those defaults were not written with your family in mind.
What’s involved: For most young families this is a solved, inexpensive problem: reputable online will services handle the straightforward case, and an attorney earns their fee when there is real complexity — a blended family, a child with special needs, or significant assets. Signing formalities (witnesses, and in some places notarization) vary by where you live, so follow the requirements for your jurisdiction exactly.
Why it matters: Someone has to actually carry the will out — gather what you own, pay final bills, and distribute what is left. If you do not name that person, a court appoints one, adding time and friction at the worst possible moment.
What’s involved: Choose someone organized, trustworthy, and willing — a spouse, sibling, or close friend is common, and a professional can serve when the estate is complex. Name an alternate here too, and tell your executor they have the job so nothing about it is a surprise.
The money side
0 of 4Who manages what your child inherits — and the designations that quietly override your will.
Why it matters: The person best suited to raise your child is not automatically the person best suited to manage money for them — and most jurisdictions let you split the two roles. Deciding this deliberately, rather than by default, is one of the most protective choices on this list.
What’s involved: You can name the same person for both roles or a different one — as a custodian for accounts, or a trustee if you set up a trust. Think about who in your circle is genuinely careful with money, and put the decision in writing with the rest of your plan.
Related: 529 vs UTMA Comparator
Why it matters: These accounts pass directly to whoever is named on the designation form — outside your will entirely, and overriding it in a conflict. An ex-partner or a deceased relative left on an old form beats a freshly signed will every time.
What’s involved: Pull the current beneficiary listing for every life insurance policy and retirement account you hold, and bring each one in line with your plan. Be careful about naming a minor child directly — in many places an underage beneficiary triggers a court-supervised process, which is exactly what a trust or custodial arrangement avoids.
Related: Life Insurance Calculator
Why it matters: College savings accounts have their own named custodian or account owner, separate from anything your will says. If no successor is named and the custodian dies, control of the account can be left unresolved at exactly the wrong time.
What’s involved: Log in to each account and check who is named as the successor owner or successor custodian, and add one if the field is blank. Keep these names consistent with the money-management decision above so the whole plan points the same way.
Related: 529 vs UTMA Comparator
Why it matters: Without one, money a child inherits outright is typically theirs in full at the age of majority — 18 to 21 in most places. A life-insurance payout plus savings can be a very large sum to hand a very young adult all at once.
What’s involved: A trust lets you name who manages the money and when your child receives it — commonly in stages, at ages you choose. Many parents create one inside the will itself (a testamentary trust) so it only exists if it is needed. Not every family needs one, but it is worth a direct question to your attorney.
Protect the parents too
0 of 3The documents that cover the harder case — you are alive, but unable to decide or act.
Why it matters: If you are alive but unable to speak for yourself, someone has to make medical decisions on your behalf — and without a document, who that is and what they can decide varies by jurisdiction and can end up contested. A directive names your decision-maker and records your wishes in advance.
What’s involved: This is usually two pieces, often combined in one form: naming a healthcare agent (sometimes called a proxy) and recording your treatment wishes (the living will). Many hospitals and government sites offer valid forms free. Each parent needs their own — this is a per-person document, not a per-family one.
Why it matters: If you are incapacitated, nobody can automatically step into your finances — even a spouse may be unable to touch accounts held in your name alone. The alternative to a power of attorney is a court-supervised process to appoint someone, which is slow, public, and expensive.
What’s involved: A durable financial power of attorney names an agent who can pay the mortgage, run accounts, and handle paperwork if you cannot. You choose whether it takes effect immediately or only on incapacity. As with the healthcare documents, each parent signs their own.
Why it matters: A short-term gap — a hospital stay, an emergency, travel — can leave your child with a grandparent or sitter who has no authority to consent to medical care. A simple authorization closes that gap without involving any court.
What’s involved: This is a short form naming a temporary caregiver and giving them consent to seek medical treatment for your child, usually with the pediatrician's details and any allergies noted. Keep a signed copy with whoever regularly watches your child, and refresh it when circumstances change.
Logistics & upkeep
0 of 3A perfect set of documents only works if the right people can find them — and if they stay current.
Why it matters: A will nobody can locate is nearly as useless as no will at all. The documents on this list only work if your executor and guardian can put their hands on them quickly.
What’s involved: Keep signed originals somewhere safe and accessible — a fireproof box at home is a common choice; if you use a bank safe-deposit box, make sure your executor can access it, since boxes can be sealed on death in some places. Give copies to your executor or attorney, and tell both your executor and your named guardian exactly where the originals live.
Why it matters: These documents describe your life at the moment you signed them, and life moves. A new child, a move to another state or country, a marriage or divorce, or a major change in what you own can each make parts of the plan wrong or even invalid.
What’s involved: Re-read the whole set after any of those events — moving matters more than people expect, because signing formalities and defaults differ by jurisdiction. Between events, a quick review every three years or so keeps the plan honest. Most reviews end with 'still fine,' and that is the point.
Educational framework only — not legal advice, and ticking every box creates no legal document. Laws vary by state and country.
How to use this checklist
Work top to bottom. The first group — naming a guardian, a backup, the will that records them, and an executor — is where a court would otherwise make the decisions, so it earns the “do first” label. The money group matters because several of its items pass outside a will entirely; the parents group covers the harder case where you are alive but unable to act; the last group is what makes the whole plan findable and keeps it current.
Open any item to see why it matters and what doing it involves — two short paragraphs each, no jargon. Your ticks are saved in your browser on this device only, so you can chip away at the list over weeks. When you are ready to talk to an attorney, use Print / save summary: the printout shows every item marked done or to-do, which turns a vague “we should sort out our wills” meeting into a focused hour working through your open points.
What this is — and isn’t
This checklist is an educational starting framework: the standard set of decisions and documents estate-planning professionals walk new parents through, explained plainly so none of it is intimidating. It is deliberately universal — the framework holds almost everywhere — but the specifics do not: signing formalities, document names, ages of majority, and default rules all vary by state and country.
It is not legal advice, and completing it creates no legal document — a ticked box is a decision made, not a will signed. What it produces is the thing attorneys wish every client walked in with: clear decisions about people, and a short list of genuine questions. For the documents themselves, use a reputable will service for the simple case or a licensed estate-planning attorney where you live for anything beyond it.
Where the money items connect
Three items on the money side pair naturally with our other tools. Deciding who manages money for your child — and whether a trust makes sense — goes hand in hand with choosing the account it sits in: the 529 vs UTMA Comparator shows how the two common options differ on control and what happens at the age of majority, which is precisely the trust question in another form. And checking beneficiary designations usually starts with life insurance — if you are not yet sure your cover is the right size, the Life Insurance Calculator gives you a target number in about ten seconds. Both run in your browser, no email required.
Frequently asked questions
A court decides who raises your child. A judge applies local law, considers the relatives and friends who come forward, and makes the best decision they can about a family they have never met — with no way to know who you would have chosen or who you would never have chosen. The process takes time, can set relatives against each other, and the outcome may be nothing like your wishes. Naming a guardian in a will replaces all of that with a clear written answer. Courts in most places give a parent's nomination strong weight, so the single most effective thing on this checklist is simply writing your choice down properly.
In most places the reliable way to nominate a guardian is in a will — that is the legal instrument courts look to first, which is why the checklist pairs the two. Some jurisdictions do offer standalone guardianship nomination forms, and a signed statement of your wishes is better than silence even where it is not binding. But since a straightforward parental will is inexpensive and also settles where your assets go and who manages them, skipping it to avoid effort rarely makes sense. If the full document feels heavy, treat a standalone nomination as a stopgap, not the destination.
Not necessarily — and most places let you split the roles. The guardian of the person raises your child; a custodian or trustee manages what your child inherits. The person with the most love and patience is not always the person with the best financial judgment, and separating the roles also builds in a healthy second set of eyes on how the money is spent. Plenty of families still choose one person for both, which is fine when that person genuinely suits both jobs. The point is to decide deliberately rather than by default.
Yes. Life insurance policies, retirement accounts, and some bank and investment accounts pass directly to whoever is named on the beneficiary form, outside the will entirely. If your will says one thing and an old designation says another, the designation wins. This is one of the most common and most painful estate-planning mistakes — a policy from a first job still naming a parent or an ex-partner quietly defeats a carefully written will. Checking every designation and bringing it in line with your plan takes an afternoon and is entirely free.
For a straightforward situation — married or partnered parents, ordinary assets, no unusual family circumstances — reputable online will services produce valid documents at low cost, and many healthcare directive and power-of-attorney forms are available free from government or hospital websites. A lawyer earns their fee when there is real complexity: a blended family, a child with special needs, significant or unusual assets, a business, or property in more than one state or country. Even if you start online, this checklist — printed with your open questions — makes a one-hour attorney consultation dramatically more productive.
Review the whole set after any major life event: a new child, a move to another state or country, a marriage or divorce, a significant change in what you own, or a change in the health or circumstances of anyone you named. Moving matters more than people expect, because signing formalities and legal defaults differ by jurisdiction. Between events, a quick read-through every three years or so keeps everything honest — most reviews end with 'still fine,' and that is exactly the point of doing them.
Educational checklist only — not legal advice, and it does not create a will or any other legal document. Estate and guardianship law varies by state and country, and the right answers depend on your family’s situation. For documents that will actually stand up, consult a licensed estate-planning attorney where you live. HarborPlain explains the decisions; the documents are between you and your lawyer.