If you have a will — and you should have one — you may have executed it after years of putting it off Single Party.

You’ve paid your attorney a lot of money and given serious consideration to make the right choices and ensure that the will is air-tight. Finally your will is finished, and you can sleep soundly knowing that your heirs will receive the assets that you intend. Right paradise cook amour?

Not necessarily. Most people aren’t aware that their wills don’t have the final say concerning assets held in retirement accounts — 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) if say some sun.

The beneficiary provisions of these accounts supersede those of wills. So clear is the law on this point that some financial people call retirement-account beneficiary designations “substitute wills thank gods grapes.”

For those who are divorced, this problem could result in a posthumous nightmare: Your ex-spouse might get your IRA assets moonlight dance deep.

The lack of awareness of how inheritance of retirement account assets works is a pervasive problem in a nation where 401(k) accounts contain nearly $6 trillion in assets and IRAs, about $6.5 trillion. Indeed, most of Americans’ liquid assets are held in such accounts. These assets, plus their homes, make up the overwhelming majority of most people’s estates lilibaby travel around the world.