[AFAIK]

1- I assume wills are followed and my property distributed following my wishes.
2- Do I need to specify funeral arrangements?
3- If someone fails to make arrangements who decides whether to bury or cremate their remains?
4- Does organ donation require consent or do people opt-out?
5- Can I have a living will that states that I'd like euthanasia in certain circumstances? If I didn't specify do people attempt to keep me alive indefinitely?
6-Who makes risk-reward medical decisions when I'm unconscious or comatose? If there isn't time to follow or even discover my written instructions?

[Ter]

1- I assume wills are followed and my property distributed following my wishes.

only to some extent and depending where you live.
It is in many countries for instance impossible to disinherit your children.

2- Do I need to specify funeral arrangements?

no, you don't need to

3- If someone fails to make arrangements who decides whether to bury or cremate their remains?

your closest family which can be your spouse your parents, your children or siblings.

4- Does organ donation require consent or do people opt-out?

in some countries you need to opt-in, in others you need to opt-out.

5- Can I have a living will that states that I'd like euthanasia in certain circumstances? If I didn't specify do people attempt to keep me alive indefinitely?

that depends again on the country where you live. Most of the times, a DNR (do not ressuscitate) document can be prepared.

6-Who makes risk-reward medical decisions when I'm unconscious or comatose?

Before any hospital admission, you (or your closest family) have to sign a document giving the medical authorities in the hospital permission to do whatever they deem necessary.

I suggest you get precise and correct information from your local authorities on these matters.

[Baff]

1- I assume wills are followed and my property distributed following my wishes.
2- Do I need to specify funeral arrangements?
3- If someone fails to make arrangements who decides whether to bury or cremate their remains?
4- Does organ donation require consent or do people opt-out?
5- Can I have a living will that states that I'd like euthanasia in certain circumstances? If I didn't specify do people attempt to keep me alive indefinitely?
6-Who makes risk-reward medical decisions when I'm unconscious or comatose? If there isn't time to follow or even discover my written instructions?

My answers may be UK specific.


Your will will be followed unless someone disputes it. If so it will become a legal fest. Actually it will become a big legal fest anyway as the govt wants it's cut and even if you owe it no death tax, it still wants to learn the value of your estate so that it can tax any future gains your inheritors will make on it.

Funeral arrangements cost money. You might need to specify them if you intend to pay for them in advance.
Organising a funeral is easy, the funeral director does it all for you. Also the vicar.
Ring them... and you've cracked it.

Remember that after you die, your money and posessions effectively go into a form of receivership for a year or two. We call it "probate" in the UK.
So your wife may not have any money to her name for that time.

Organ donation in the UK requires consent. Either by carying a card (sign a small donor card keep it in your wallet, or I'm told by online registration these days too).

You can issue a do not recusitate order at the hospital so if you die there, you stay dead and don't get revived.
You can travel to Amsterdam(?) and get yourself euthanased. But this is illegal and if anyone helps you, they get royally screwed.

The doctor makes life or death decisions. You have to sign the rescusitate/do not rescusitate order yourself. If there is time, your family will be consulted by your doctor.
If you are in a coma and have not expressed your own preference I expect that they will be offered this decision to make.
It's not polite to leave this to your doctor. It puts him in a very difficult position.

[AFAIK]

Um, I posted this in the Libertarian forum. I'm not asking for legal advice.

[Eran]

The libertarian perspective isn't that different from common western practices:
1. Yes, your will will be followed. There may well be some legal conventions governing default distribution (without a will)
2. You may, but need not specify funeral arrangements. Your will may stipulate who is charged with managing your estate (including your body) after your death, or default rules (next of kin, etc.) come in.
If you die without next-of-kin and without a will, your body as well as the rest of your estate may be considered "unowned property", and open to homesteading. The hospital, for example, may have a policy of making scientific or educational use of bodies of people in that situation who die on its premises.
3. Next of kin
4. That depends on community conventions. As in many cases, arbitrators would have to figure what your choice would likely have been, if you were entitled to, but never made one. Your personal views, as expressed in the past, together with community standards (e.g. do the vast majority of people go one way or another?) will determine the answer.
5. You can certainly have a living will, and euthanasia would be legal of following your explicit wishes. The default of most care institutions would be to keep you alive, though not at all costs and in all circumstances. Policy may vary by institution.
6. Next of kin. Absent that, the hospital will make a best-efforts attempt as your temporary ward. Their decisions would have to be reasonable, or risk subsequent prosecution.

[AFAIK]

What happens to my debts?

[Baff]

In my country, they are paid out of your estate.

The bills go to the executor of your will.

[Nunt]

What happens to my debts?

Same thing as what happens currently.