Will

Ideally, everyone should make out a will as soon as you are on your own and have any property or assets, just to be sure that in case an unexpected early death, your wishes will be known and carried out.  A will should be updated every few years, especially at major events in your life time, such as marriage, birth of a child, divorce, or death of a spouse. 

For our parents, we need to make sure that the will is current, that the person selected to be the executor is still available and able to do the job.  While naming a guardian for minor children can be dropped as the children grow older, there are other changes that need to be made.  Perhaps a couple used a portion of their savings to help one child buy a house or pay off catastrophic medical bills, and now wants to decrease that child's inheritance accordingly.  An adult child may die, move away and out of touch with the family, or have other family conflicts that change their status with the parents.  These changes need to be reflected in both wills.

In many cases, a will is reciprocal, written for both spouses at once, each naming the surviving partner as beneficiary.  This could work well in most cases, but not always, as one the surviving spouse in incapacitated and unable to deal with arrangements, probate, taxes, and the other necessities of widowhood.  My grandfather remarried, after his first wife died, when I was very young.  When he died, all his property and possessions went to his second wife because he had no will.  She lived another ten years and when she died, her family inherited everything.  My mother and her brothers, the children of his first marriage, didn't get any of the family items they had grown up with and loved, not even old family albums and histories, because he didn't have a will stating what possessions went to who.

Another option in inheritance, if there is only one child, is to have the half of the jointly-owned property of the deceased go to the child, rather than the spouse.  My parents had purchased a house for the three of us to live in after I had to go on SS Disability.  When my father passed away, his half of the property came to me so I owned it jointly with my mother.  With no other beneficiaries, it made for a much easier probate and allowed us to retain the house with no hassle.