Wanting to save money is natural, but your estate plan is rarely the place to cut corners. For professional advice tailored to your needs, contact Beller Law, PL. With over 25 years of experience, we can help you create a comprehensive, efficient plan at a reasonable price.
What You Can Do with a Proper Estate Plan
Through a carefully drafted estate plan, you can provide for your loved ones, maximize what you leave them, and create a lasting legacy. You often accomplish this through a will and/or one or more trusts. Your will explains where you want your property to go, while trusts can serve many purposes, depending on your needs. Typically, your plan also involves creating advance directives, like living wills, designations of health care surrogates, and powers of attorney, to make administering your estate as painless as possible.
What You Risk with an Improper Estate Plan
Relying on an automated service to make your estate plan risks:
- Your will not meeting legal validity requirements,
- Missing out on tailored options specific to your wishes,
- Dividing your loved ones,
- Sparking legal disputes and complications, and
- Lessening the amount you leave to your loved ones and raising their expenses.
These risks may frustrate the entire purpose of your estate plan and leave your loved ones scrambling.
Invalid Wills
In Florida, you must be 18 or older and of sound mind to create a will, and the will must be:
- In writing,
- Signed by the testator (the will’s creator) at the end, and
- Signed by two witnesses.
You must sign before the witnesses. They may only sign if they witness you signing the will, or you acknowledge that you previously signed the will. Unlike some states, Florida allows interested parties, meaning your legal heirs and individuals you leave something, to be witnesses.
Will Challenges
After you die, your will goes to probate court. There, interested parties may challenge the will. Common challenges include:
- Improper execution—the will does not comply with the law;
- Lack of testamentary capacity—you were not of sound mind; and
- Undue influence—someone caused you to create the will through fraud, force, threats of force, coercion, or duress.
The ease of creating DIY wills also raises the possibility of a less common challenge: lack of testamentary intent—that you did not intend the document to be your will, even if you met other formalities.
If a will challenge succeeds, the probate court may decide the will is invalid, leaving you with no will and your estate to be distributed based on state intestacy law.
Proving the Validity of a DIY Will
Proving or disproving the validity of a DIY will is uniquely difficult for many reasons, especially when questions about undue influence and testamentary capacity arise.
For example, when undue influence occurs, the responsible parties are usually also interested parties. Especially in a DIY will, they may also be the witnesses. As a result, no impartial party may have been involved in the will’s creation, resulting in serious difficulty proving undue influence.
Also, when an attorney helps you prepare your will, the attorney can observe whether you appear to be of sound mind and can later attest to it. A DIY will bypass having someone observe the signing who is disinterested in the will and familiar with what testamentary capacity means.
Intestate Succession
Your estate passes through intestate succession when you die without a valid will. Your property goes to your closest living relatives. In Florida, your property goes to your surviving spouse and descendants, if any, then your:
- Parents,
- Siblings and their descendants,
- Grandparents,
- Aunts and uncles and their descendants, and
- Deceased spouse’s living heirs, if any.
Although intestate succession attempts to approximate what the average person would want, it frequently creates unsatisfactory results. Various unexpected people may end up with your property when you would not have wanted them to, and other people may be excluded who you did want to receive your property.
For example, assume you leave no surviving spouse and two children. Child One hadn’t been speaking to you and you previously gave them money, while Child Two regularly supports and helps you with your home. You wanted Child Two to have the home.
But by law, both children are entitled to half of your total estate. If your home is one of your most valuable assets, it may need to be sold to evenly divide your estate between the children.
Lack of Tailoring
Your estate plan should reflect your life and your priorities. DIY estate planning cannot truly consider your unique needs or wishes. You are left to rely on templates and default rules, which fall victim to the same flaws as intestate succession. An untailored estate plan may also result in your loved ones not receiving the property they should or being forced to sell it.
Family Disputes
A clear estate plan minimizes the chances of disputes. Unclear estate plans and unplanned estates increase the chances that your loved ones will disagree over what should happen. Estate disputes can tear families apart, potentially creating lifelong schisms.
Legal Complications
Legal disputes over estates can last years, leaving your property in limbo, which can also cause them to lose value. Unclear instructions may result in the sale or attempted sale of property you tried to leave to specific people. Your loved ones may be forced to pursue legal action to remedy the situation.
Financial Loss
With legal disputes and probate court challenges come legal fees, which only increase over time. A well-tailored estate plan also allows you to minimize such costs and helps retain the value of your property.
The Value of Professional Estate Planning Guidance
Online services that promise to help you with DIY estate planning may be tempting, but they pose serious risks. At worst, your DIY plan may tear your family apart, launching legal battles that take years to resolve. At best, your DIY plan is likely missing mechanisms to provide for your loved ones and maximize what you leave them. Reach out to Beller Law, PL, to learn more about how we can help you ensure your unique estate plan meets your needs.