First ALS Support Group

I attended my first meeting yesterday. In my area, they meet once a month. For the session they had a law firm come and speak about estate planning. He stressed the importance of not doing an internet will, or power of attorney. Of course all of our documents are the internet type. Is this guy just looking to make $$ or do we need to invest in actual lawyer prepared forms? We don't currently have a power of attorney in place, just medical proxy, so I know that needs to be done while he can still sign.

I've been sick at my stomach all day long.

Ask another lawyer if you can have a free first session to be told what you need to do and how to go about it and the cost?

Did he explain WHY not to use internet forms?

In our area, we have a law school and it has an "elder care" component. The students help with anything legal- wills, etc. under the supervision of instructors. It is free! If you have a law school near you,you might check for this service. Hiring a lawyer can be a costly thing so this is a great service for helping seniors AND training lawyers to be under close supervision.

Tillie -
He said that each state has a specific language and that the blanket internet forms do not always use such language. IF there were to be a problem, (other family contesting medical wishes, etc.) it would be easier to disregard the internet power of attorney.

Cheerleader - Will have to check into that!

Many communities also have legal aid centers where you may be able to find attorneys who do sliding scale and pro bono work. Each state's laws are very specific in regards to wills, trusts and estate law, so not only do most online forms not comply with all states, but few keep up with the changes to each. I am a trained paralegal and will still use an attorney to do final draft on ours. Just too many "i"s to be dotted and "t"s to be crossed!

Plus, at least in our state, most resources spent preparing certain trusts can be saved in the long run because nothing goes to probate after the fact. Probate fees here are ridiculous! (And those documents are made public.) Just a thought.

I know here you can go to the court house and get a kind of fill in the blank out line for filing for divorce, don't see why there wouldn't be one to cover the basis for a Will too. so check your court house.
We went ahead and visited a lawyer and spent 700 bucks sorting out the Will and making sure all the disability numbers and papers were done right. costly perhaps seems so but in the long run probly not. I was so fearful of not having something right and getting screwed. so the peace of mind was worth it.

The importance of having a knowledgeable attorney prepare your will versus an online internet process depends on a number of factors. It will depend upon the complexities of the laws governing your state. It will depend upon the beneficiaries that will be left behind. And it will depend upon the size of your estate and the ownership of items (spouse1, spouse2, joint). And, it is important to realize that the PALS is not always the one to go first. Imagine the nightmare to a PALS when something happens prematurely to their caregiver. We used a local attorney (who is also a scouting friend and client). After having gone through the lengthy process, I could not imagined leaving ourselves open to the interpretation of an online will process...

Jim

We just went through it with an attorney who does nothing but wills and trusts. At a fixed price of $1700 he was about half what another lawyer wanted, just to start.

My original idea:

Anyone who deserves an inheritance will probably never need it.

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It's sad to see how inheritances make enemies within a family. My parents had nothing to leave, so all 7 of us brothers and sisters get along great.

GB

In florida , to avoid probate, we were told to have all property held jointly and to have all insurance/401k/retirement type accounts with named beneficiaries. Then with a will done by a lawyer, we should be fine. It can keep the vultures at bay....

Yep- getting both names on everything including utilities is important. I couldn't even make changes on things like our Comcast plan when it was in his name only.

If you have to get with a lawyer for a will anyhow, go full hog and do a full estate plan. Put everything (house, cars, jewelry, dogs) into a trust.
Wife/husband are the primary trustees and children secondary.

Ain't necessarily cheap, but if you've ever suffered through an estate probate with less than 'friendly' family it's damn sure worth it.

Thanks for clarifying.

We did all of ours with a lawyer too, even though our stuff was very simple as Chris had very little when we sold our houses and bought this property together. No superannuation (he worked for himself most of his life and never put away any), no life insurance, just a nice big debt for me to take over lol

I was lucky that I have a lawyer that occasionally asks me to do some work for him, I don't charge him anything, then if I need a little something done we become square again.

If we did have a complex setup it would have cost money of course but been worth it to get lots of detail very clear.

The other forms for enduring attorney and guardianship are standard forms here, one from the lawyer and one from the doctor.

wow first time to mod in a while for me ....