I once had clients who were having wills drafted. He was Muslim, of Iranian background; most of his family was overseas. She had converted to Islam after marrying him, and they had chosen to raise their children Muslim. It was very important to them to have wills in place, because there would be no one who had an automatic right to apply to be their children’s guardian who would raise them in their faith. As a result, we put in place a provision for a friend and member of their mosque to become the guardian, to ensure they would be raised in the religion of their parents.
If you have any specific religious beliefs, you should always have documents in place to protect these. However, even if you are not religious, you should keep mindful of religion in your estate planning. If you and your spouse are atheist, you do not want your children raised by your very religious parents, any more than my clients would have wanted their children raised by her agnostic parents.
When you are preparing your will and powers of attorney, you should always keep your and your family’s religion in mind.
