I am too young to need an estate plan

Adulthood, not age 65, is the trigger. A Pennsylvania will names a guardian, and powers of attorney cover incapacity long before retirement.

"We will get to it when we are older" is the most expensive sentence in estate planning. It assumes the risk shows up at retirement. It does not.

Two things trigger a plan. The first is adulthood. The second is anyone who depends on you, or any asset in your name alone. Age 65 is not on the list.

Start with incapacity, because that is the one people under 50 refuse to picture. A stroke, a crash, a surgery that goes sideways. If the house is in your name, or the checking account is, your spouse cannot sell, refinance, or even get past the bank's privacy desk on charm and a marriage license. Pennsylvania does not hand a spouse that authority. A financial power of attorney does. A health care power of attorney and a living will will do the same jobs for medicine. These documents are dull until the week you need them. Then they are the whole week.

Death is the other trigger, and it does not check your birthday. If you die without a will, 20 P.S. § 2102 applies to property that passes through probate.

If you leave a spouse and no children and no living parents, the spouse takes the intestate property. If you leave a spouse and children of that marriage, the spouse takes the first $30,000 plus half of what remains. The children take the other half. If you leave a spouse, and a child who is not also that spouses's child, the spouse takes half, with no $30,000 preference. Parents, siblings, and more distant relatives come into the picture only if closer people are gone.

That is a plan. It is just not yours.

For parents of minor children, the will does a job that statute cannot. It nominates a guardian of the person. A court still appoints. Courts give real weight to a thoughtful nomination, and almost none to a preference you never wrote down. If you and your spouse died on the same afternoon, "we always assumed it would be my sister" is a family argument, not a legal instruction.

Young household also hold the assets that ignore wills. Group life insurance. A 401(k) or IRA. A transfer-on-death brokerage form. Those pass by beneficiary designation. The form you signed at 26 can still name a parent, or an ex, or no one. If it names no one, the asset may fall back into the estate and then into the intestacy rules above. Review the form when you marry, when you have a child, when you divorce, and when you change jobs.

A simple plan at this stage is not a stack of binders. It is a will with a guardian nomination and a contingent trust for anyone under a stated age, durable financial and health care powers, a living will, and an hour with the beneficiary forms. You update it when life changes. You do not wait for the life change to be retirement.

It is easy to set this aside when you still feel young. Most people do. The trouble is that the documents are for the year something happens early, not for the year you expected.

Sojourner Law, PLLC advises individuals and families on estate planning, and estate administration in Pennsylvania.

This article is general information about Pennsylvania law as of October 2026. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Inheritance tax treatment depends on the asset, the title, and the beneficiary. Talk with a Pennsylvania estate planning attorney about your situation.