Why An Estate Planning Attorney?

15 Reasons to Use a Florida Estate Planning Attorney for Your Estate Planning Needs

1. This Estate Planning Attorney really charges no more than the online. A comparison of my Charges versus LegalZoom’s is located here. There is really no difference, although I provide more services. I firmly believe that an estate plan for a middle-income family does not have to be prohibitively expensive. There are ways to keep costs under control when preparing your estate plan. Buying documents online just doesn’t happen to be one of them. Having a licensed Florida Attorney prepare your documents is your first step to controlling your costs.
2. Florida Law rules Estate Plans. Florida Estate Planning Attorneys Are Necessary for Estate Plans. Florida statutes are very specific about what can and can’t be in a will, trust, or medical or financial power of attorney; who can and can’t serve as a personal representative, trustee, health care surrogate or attorney in fact; who can and can’t be a witness to a will, trust, or medical or financial power of attorney; and what formalities must be observed when signing a will, trust, or medical or financial power of attorney. In Florida, a personal representative must either be related to you by blood or marriage or, if not, then a resident of the state. What happens when a Florida resident designates a friend or attorney from out of state to serve as their personal representative? A Florida Estate Planning Attorney will help you to avoid this kind of simple and yet costly mistake.
3. When dealing with an Online Document company, Buyer Beware. What you get may not be legally sufficient. Caveat Emptor, or Buyer Beware, definitely applies to this type of estate planning. Are the documents being provided to you created by an attorney? The answer would be either “No” or “I don’t know.” If an issue arises either through drafting or execution of your estate planning documents, will an Online Document company provide answers or corrections? The answer would be “No.” If you think that you’ll be saving a few dollars by using forms found on the internet or in a do-it-yourself book to prepare your estate planning documents, then don’t believe it. You could spend Thousands of Dollars to fix legally deficient documents that would have been created correctly the first time.
4. A Florida Estate Planning Attorney takes the time to review and discuss with you complex family and financial situations. Surprisingly simple events in your life need to be adequately addressed in your estate plan. Are you in a second or third marriage? Do you own a business? Do you have any special needs members of your family? Do you have minor children? Do you have a problem child? Are you childless? Do you want to leave any some of your estate to a charity? Do you have a pet you would like to take care of? Do you own guns you would like to bequeath to someone? Do you have substantial assets in a 401k or IRA? If one or more of these situations apply to you, then you’ll need the counseling and advice of an experienced Florida Estate Planning Attorney to create your estate planning documents. Otherwise, it may be a probate lawyer and the IRS that will receive the largest chunk of your estate.
5. A Florida Estate Planning Attorney will provide clear estate planning documents. One size fits all or poorly written, ambiguous documents can spark litigation, and fail the testator’s purpose.
6. A Florida Estate Planning Attorney will provide peace of mind. Hiring an estate planning attorney can ease estate planning angst and ensure inheritance property is protected after death.
7. You are having very specific and powerful documents created. Why trust your estate planning to a company that doesn’t draft your documents to your particular circumstance? There truly is a difference between an Estate Planning Attorney and various “trust drafters” marketing their “skills.” A trust is an important document with far-reaching effects. We do not recommend you place this responsibility in the hands of a paralegal, a “trust advisor,” or anyone else who is practicing law without being a lawyer. They are in the business of selling “one size fits all” documents. You may be told that the documents they offer have been “reviewed by an attorney.” That is probably so, but beside the point. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of potential provisions for an estate plan. The skill and knowledge come in knowing which trust and what provisions are appropriate for your situation. That entails judgments only an attorney who has met with and interviewed you is qualified to make.
8. A Florida Estate Planning Attorney is looking to develop an attorney-client relationship for life, not just for an immediate sale of documents. A Florida Estate Planning Attorney is not trying to sell documents. He’s trying to develop a relationship that last longer than just the initial creation of the estate plan. As such, there’s no incentive to overcharge a client.
9. You will get solid legal advice from a Florida Estate Planning Attorney. You won’t with an Online Document company. A Florida Estate Planning Attorney will give you advice on setting up and structuring the will and/or trust in a way to reduce, if not avoid entirely, hefty and burdensome estate taxes. He’ll also give you advice on how to structure your accounts and life to really avoid probate whenever possible. Do you know what a POD is? Do you know what steps you can take now to transfer ownership of assets without having to address it through probate?
10. You will get Quality Control with a Florida Estate Planning Attorney from the moment you sit down and speak with him. Your attorney can provide quality control to estate planning documents to catch errors, omissions and oversights, especially in documents prepared by others or parties without the assistance of counsel.
11. Your Florida Estate Planning Attorney will be able to pro-actively help you structure your estate plan to avoid conflicts down the road. Perhaps most valuable of all, a Florida Estate Planning Attorney can assist throughout the estate administration process by squelching conflicts and challenges before they have a chance to fester and surface in costly and damaging ways. This invaluable service can prevent costly, time-intensive estate litigation in instances when will challenges are made or a party files suit over the will.
12. Online Document companies, like LegalZoom.com do not provide you legal advice in any way. So would you want to get legal documents from an entity that can’t even provide legal advice on said documents? Probably not. But really, they do, in fact, go out of their way to say they don’t provide legal advice. Verbatim, LegalZoom’s disclaimer states that “LegalZoom’s document service also includes a review of your answers for completeness, spelling and grammar, as well as internal consistency of names, addresses and the like. At no time do we review your answers for legal sufficiency, draw legal conclusions, provide legal advice or apply the law to the facts of your particular situation. LegalZoom and its services are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney.”
13. A Florida Estate Attorney will provide you with sound legal advice and documents that are compliant with current Florida Statutes, the Online Documents may or may not. And again, their disclaimers will protect them and not you. LegalZoom’s disclaimer, verbatim, is that “(a)lthough LegalZoom takes every reasonable effort to ensure that the information on our website and documents are up-to-date and legally sufficient, the legal information on this site is not legal advice and is not guaranteed to be correct, complete or up-to-date. Because the law changes rapidly, is different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and is also subject to varying interpretations by different courts and certain government and administrative bodies, LegalZoom cannot guarantee that all the information on the site is completely current. The law is a personal matter, and no general information or legal tool like the kind LegalZoom provides can fit every circumstance.” Why would you use their service if you’re not sure the documents they provide are legally sufficient? What’s interesting is that they market that you don’t need an attorney, but then disclaim that not only are their documents not up to day, but maybe not legally sufficient. In short, despite a disclaimer that their document preparation services are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney, they try to convince you that the advice of an attorney is simply not necessary.
14. A Florida Estate Planning Attorney will follow you through the whole process. Legally sufficient documents are one thing. How they are executed is another. Formalities exist to protect the person. Even a perfectly drafted document, if executed improperly, is invalid. For the same cost, why take the chance?
15. Do It Yourself Estate Planning is risky. A Florida Estate Planning Attorney has 7+ years of specialized education. While the Online Document companies want you to believe it’s as easy as filling in the blanks, it’s not. And they make it so alluring, offering low prices and great convenience. But at what cost?