Summary: Sometimes, people don’t always
grasp the deep significance of certain decisions. Engaging in do-it-yourself
estate planning can be one of those things. You may not necessarily realize it
but, by creating an estate plan on your own, you are essentially doing for
yourself what an attorney would otherwise do for you. And, as Abraham Lincoln
once famously said, “He who represents himself has a fool for a client.” We
don’t know what we don’t know. The best way to be sure that your plan is
comprehensive, reliable and optimally designed to meet your unique needs is to
avoid DIY estate planning and work with an experienced estate planning
attorney.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article entitled “DIY Estate Planning
Has Its Risks.” The article correctly points out that there are many ways that
do-it-yourself estate planning can fall short of meeting your needs. Sometimes,
those shortcomings can be problematic. Other times, though, they can be downright
disastrous. In a lot of cases, the flaws in an improperly created estate plan
are not even discovered until after the plan’s creator(s) have passed away,
leaving their loved one stuck with stress, uncertainty and, all too often, big
expenses that go with fixing the problems created by the poorly constructed
plan.
As the Journal points out, if a person’s assets are not very complex and their
planning goals are uncomplicated, then it is possible for DIY estate planning
to meet their needs adequately. But that just leads to another question: how do
you know that your estate is
sufficiently simple and your planning objectives sufficiently straightforward
to allow you to skip the step of hiring of an experienced attorney? Your estate
and your goals might seem simple and
non-complex to you, but there could be complications or complexities lurking
within your circumstances that a knowledgeable estate planning professional
might be able to spot, whereas they were hidden to you.
Another type of “hidden trap” that can
ensnare the DIY estate planner is, as the Journal
noted, the risk of missing something. Perhaps you think you have done
everything you need to do in order to complete the creation of your estate plan
while, in reality, you’ve done almost
everything. Maybe you overlooked the naming of a contingent fiduciary. Maybe
you made a math error and your plan distributions distribute 110% of your
wealth. Perhaps the form you used doesn’t address some new change to your
state’s estate planning laws. As a financial adviser correctly summed it up to
the Journal, “We don’t know what we
don’t know.”
Additionally, while no one likes to
think about a court challenge to their plan, plan contests do happen, and they
are one more area where having used an attorney in the creation of your plan
can help. Your estate planning attorney can help explain to a judge why you
made the decisions you did and help explain, not only your estate planning
objectives, but also your state of mind and mental clarity when you did them.
The internet and modern technology tools can be wonderful things for many types
of research and learning, but Siri can neither testify in court about the
personal reasons motivating you to leave 80% of your assets to your daughter
and 20% to your son, nor your mental capacity when you made an estate plan
doing exactly that.
This article is published by the Legacy Assurance Plan and is intended for general informational purposes only. Some information may not apply to your situation. It does not, nor is it intended, to constitute legal advice. You should consult with an attorney regarding any specific questions about probate, living probate or other estate planning matters. Legacy Assurance Plan is an estate planning services-company and is not a lawyer or law firm and is not engaged in the practice of law. For more information about this and other estate planning matters visit our website at www.legacyassuranceplan.com.
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