Letter of Intent.
In plain English
A letter of intent is a personal document you leave with your estate paperwork to guide the people who will handle your affairs and care for your dependents. Unlike a will or trust, it usually carries no legal force, so a court does not have to follow it. Its job is to fill the gaps a legal document cannot: where to find your accounts and passwords, how you want a special-needs child cared for day to day, what your values are, even funeral preferences. Families and caregivers lean on it because the formal documents say who gets what, but rarely say how or why. State law governs the binding documents, so treat the letter as a companion to a proper will, not a replacement.
01Why it matters
When someone dies, the people left behind often have hours of guesswork ahead of them, and a clear letter can save them weeks of hunting for accounts, logins, and your actual wishes.
02The math, step by step
A parent of a child with autism writes a letter of intent describing the child's daily routine, favorite foods, doctors, calming strategies, and which relatives they trust as backup caregivers. The will names a legal guardian and the trust holds the money, but the letter is what lets that guardian actually step in and care for the child without starting from zero. None of it is court-enforced, but the guardian follows it because it is the parent's voice on paper.
03What this is NOT
A letter of intent is not a will. A will is a legally binding document that a court enforces to transfer your property and name guardians. A letter of intent is informal guidance with no legal force, meant to explain wishes and share practical details the will leaves out.
04Receipts
Every figure on this page is sourced to a primary document. Tap to open the original.
Plain-English answers from our glossary. Receipts included. Never advice.
Educational tool. Answers come only from ClearMoneySchool's published glossary and are not advice. Why we never give advice