Should I Write My Own Will?
You know you need will. Why not take advantage of one of these online legal services, or just write one yourself?
As professional trustee and performer Margarita K. Lorenz explains, working on your own can cause more problems than solving:
For some people with complex personal and financial lives, today’s complexities cannot be fully resolved with self-help bequest and trust services. While many of us would rather fill in the blanks silently than talk to someone about our doubts or concerns, sometimes getting professional advice helps – in many ways -.
If you prepare your taxes yourself and they end up wrong, you and the IRS can fix your problems. However, if you decide to start planning your property yourself, ”you may never know the results of your work, but your loved ones will.
In other words: If you leave a will that doesn’t include all of your assets, contains errors or conflicting instructions, or, as Lorenz warns, doesn’t comply with your state’s inheritance laws, your loved ones could inherit a lot of trouble.
Even an online legal service may not have all the tools needed to draw up an effective will. We already discussed this topic back in 2011:
Three DIY will-making products – LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer and Quicken WillMaker Plus – have been judged on a number of quality criteria by a law professor specializing in estate and trusts. He found that all three wills made up are better than no wills at all and can be useful for thinking about estate planning … but there were problems inherent in all homemade products if you have anything other than very basic drafting needs. wills. … For example, two had outdated information. In addition, the program could not solve some specific tax and trust issues. (Of the three, by the way, WillMaker Plus was voted the best for making a simple will.)
DIY legal software keeps getting better and better – and the top ten reviews confirm that Quicken WillMaker Plus is still the best software option , even in 2019 – but these tools may not be robust enough to meet your real estate planning needs.
Whether you like it or not, you can contact a lawyer before drafting your will (and contact that lawyer if you plan to revise the document). This can cost anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, depending on the complexity of your estate. However, a well-written will can save your beneficiaries a lot of time and hassle, and help ensure that your assets are allocated as you wish.
Have you made a will? Have you consulted with a lawyer or yourself? If a loved one left behind a do-it-yourself will, how easy was that document to fulfill? Writing your own will is always an option, but not necessarily the best.