Plenty of people treat a will as the master file: one document to hold every wish, every account, every instruction, every password. That is not what the document is built to do. A will is a narrow legal tool with a narrow job, and loading it with material that belongs elsewhere can produce the exact mess you were hoping to spare your family.
So here is a quick self-check. Seven items, all of them common in Minnesota households. For each one, decide before you read on: does this belong inside the will, or somewhere else entirely? By the end you will have a much clearer sense of what you should never put in your will, and of what genuinely belongs there.
1. Your Passwords, PINs, and Account Numbers
Your answer? Keep them out.
Once a will is filed with a Minnesota probate court, it generally becomes part of the public record. We cover that in our article on whether your will becomes a public record. Anything typed inside it can end up visible to anyone who pulls the file.
Minnesota law does allow the person handling your estate to request access to digital accounts when you have granted that authority in writing, and many platforms offer their own legacy contact settings. Grant the authority in your documents, keep the actual credentials somewhere private, and make sure the person you named knows where to look.
2. Your 401(k), IRA, and Life Insurance Payouts
Your answer? Naming these in a will usually accomplishes nothing.
These accounts pass by contract to whoever is listed on the beneficiary form, and that form controls no matter what your will says. A designation completed decades ago, one that may still name a former spouse, can send a substantial account somewhere you never intended. Read each form as it exists today, not as you remember filling it out.
3. Assets You Already Moved Into Your Revocable Trust
Your answer? Leave them out.
Once the cabin, the home, or the brokerage account is retitled into a revocable living trust, the trust governs what happens to it. Restating the same property in your will leaves two documents describing one asset, which invites argument rather than preventing it. A pour-over will already handles whatever you never got around to transferring.
4. A Guardian Nomination for Your Minor Children
Your answer? Yes. This one belongs in the will.
For Minnesota parents, naming who would raise your children is one of the clearest reasons to have a will at all. A court still reviews and confirms the appointment, but your written nomination carries real weight and gives a judge direction at a moment when your family has none to offer. With nothing in writing, that decision gets made without your input.
5. Money Left Directly to Your Dog
Your answer? Not as a direct gift.
Pets are property under the law, and property cannot inherit property. Minnesota does recognize pet trusts, which let you set money aside for an animal’s care and name both a caretaker and someone who can enforce the arrangement. A court can reduce funding it considers more than the animal’s care requires, so the amount deserves as much thought as the intent.
6. Funeral and Burial Instructions
Your answer? Not somewhere you should rely on.
Timing is the problem. Wills are often located and read days or weeks after the service, so instructions buried in the document may surface far too late to follow. Minnesota allows you to name the person who will control your final arrangements in a separate signed and dated writing. Pair that with an actual conversation, because the people making these calls are grieving and should not have to guess.
7. A Large Outright Gift to a Young Beneficiary
Your answer? Proceed carefully.
A minor cannot simply receive and manage an inheritance, and a gift structured that way can pull your family into a court-supervised process nobody planned for. We walk through how that unfolds in our piece on what happens when a minor receives an inheritance in Minnesota. A custodial arrangement or a trust with staged distributions often fits better. The same caution applies to a beneficiary receiving needs-based public benefits, where an outright inheritance can disrupt eligibility.
How Did You Do?
If you placed more than a couple of these inside the will, you are in ordinary company. Most of these items are not wrong to plan for. They simply belong in a different document, form, or conversation. Families we work with across Minneapolis, Woodbury, Bloomington, Minnetonka, and White Bear Lake run into the same handful of assumptions. You can also browse short explainers on our YouTube video library.
Key Takeaways
- A will filed with a Minnesota probate court generally becomes public, so passwords, PINs, and account numbers should be stored separately and privately.
- Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance control those assets regardless of what your will says.
- Property already titled in a revocable trust does not need to be restated in the will.
- Guardian nominations for minor children do belong in the will and give a court meaningful direction.
- Pets, funeral instructions, and gifts to young or benefits-receiving beneficiaries each call for a separate tool rather than a paragraph in the will.
Review Your Will With Stone Arch Law Office
A will that has not been reviewed in several years often carries at least one of these issues, and the people who find it are rarely in a position to fix it. Understanding what you should never put in your will is really about making sure each piece of your plan sits in a document that can actually carry it. At Stone Arch Law Office, our Minnesota estate planning attorneys can review what you have, explain how the pieces fit together, and talk through options that make sense for your situation. Get a free consultation to learn more.
References: Ageist (July 31, 2026) “Your Digital Afterlife: A No-Nonsense Guide to Digital Will & Legacy Planning” | Forbes (July 24, 2026) “An Estate Planning Checklist For The Rest Of 2026”
