DIY Estate Planning Dangers

With the help of online tools and books, many people are bypassing lawyers and creating their own estate planning documents. While some people (for example, the general counsel for LegalZoom) argue that do-it-yourself documents are better than no documents at all, drafting your own documents can be dangerous and lead to many problems, including:

• Drafting documents with mistakes in them. According to Hani Sarji, a Brooklyn-based estate planning and tax lawyer, people get a false sense of security from drafting their own estate planning documents. In reality, if you answer one question incorrectly or overlook one fact, your documents might be incorrect or even ineffective. Attorneys know what questions to ask and where to put each piece of information.
• Failing to prepare for contingencies. Most people don’t consider what they would want to happen upon certain events, such as divorce, being pre-deceased by children, or new children being born or adopted. Without the help of a lawyer, state law will control what happens in such situations which may not be what the individual wanted.
• Unsuccessfully planning for estate taxes. The estate tax situation is currently so complicated that even many attorneys don’t know how to successfully minimize estate taxes, let alone people with no professional help.

For more information, including tips on how to get your estate plan professionally done for less money, see Kimberly Palmer, The Dangers of DIY Estate Planning, U.S. News, June 29, 2010.