For the lawyers among us

[Darryl]

Please suggest online will/estate writing software or online services that you feel are good/best

[GoBucks]

I believe there is no substitute for meeting a lawyer in your locality who is experienced in your State laws. Does your State have a transfer on death process on real estate? Does your State Bureau of Motor Vehicles have a form to transfer a vehicle without going through Probate? Do you know the tax consequences of naming a beneficiary of your 401(k), pension, life insurance etc? Your local attorney should have all those answers. For years I have fixed problems caused by people "doing it yourself". I always ask: "How much money did you save?" Online stuff is not free. (If it is, then you got what you paid for.) Call your local Bar Association and get a referral to an experienced attorney. Or ask your friends who they have used.

[Darryl Partner in reply to GoBucks]

Thanks. Excellent advice. Unfortunately I am homebound in Manhattan I am guessing most lawyers are only helping existing clients via Skype

[GoBucks in reply to Darryl]

I am working from home. Skype, FaceTime, Zoom etc. I can draft documents based on our video meeting and email to my clients. Signing in front of 2 witnesses these days poses a problem. Can't imagine going to a client's house for a signing now.

[edwards304 in reply to GoBucks]

I have to agree with GoBucks....

You can discuss with counsel all the various nuances of your estate.

It can get complicated...

Better safe than sorry...

Taking care of your family is paramount to saving a couple of hundred dollars.

GL

[BerkshireBear in reply to GoBucks]

I very much agree with GoBucks. I just went through this with my partner, indeed final signing is tomorrow. We downloaded several "free" DIY versions from various sites (even some that claim to be state specific) and tried to meld them. While attempting that we read a lot of on line law and commentary about the quirks in Massachusetts state laws and regulations that we made us uneasy going ahead with what we had. We went to an elderlaw firm which offered a package of Durable Power of Attorney, Medical Proxy, and Will, plus advised on Homestead declaration for a very reasonable flat fee. They incorporated my partner's desires into their Mass-specific standard format. We questioned and negotiated a few points but not much. In going over what they had done I was thankful for all the items that they added which the downloaded samples just simply missed. Sure many of the adds were obscure and never likely to be tested, but we are in a litigious times and there is family.

OTOH, considering the pressures we feel in this stay-at-home lock-down situation the lawyer process is likely to take too long for some of us. So having something is way better than having nothing. If you can't wait, there are both paid and free versions out there, download several and start comparing, assemble the parts as your own, get it dated, signed, and witnessed (an notarized if your state requires). It can all be revised later if necessary.

P.S. I really advise doing the POA, Living Will, and Last Will as a package. The POA allows someone to handle affairs up to point of death, then the Last Will's personal representative (formerly: executor) handles postmortem. There's a big legal/fiscal/responsibility wall there if the POA and executor are different people. Frankly from what I read if the illness is CORVID-19 there just won't be time or resources for doctors to pay attention to a Living Will, but every case is different.

[Darryl Partner]

Thanks

[timotur]

Check nolo.com. May work for a simple will/estate.

[ctarleton in reply to timotur]

Nolo also has a handy book, with available downloadable files, for gathering all kinds of personal and family records that one could need before, during, or after actually completing any official Estate Planning and related Medical/End-of-Life documents. I've used it and have found it to be quite helpful for many things that do not make it into the formal documents.

"Get It Together" - Organize Your Records So Your Family Won't Have To

store.nolo.com/products/get...

We did meet with a professional to create an Estate Plan a few years ago. She was also experienced in counseling and mediation. We both have relatives from prior relationships who are in different life circumstances, with differences in prior, present, and future needs, assets and income streams. Doing the communications to nail down the exact wording we wanted on each of the Documents was more non-trivial than we expected, and we came to really appreciate that aspect of her professional assistance. The emotional aspects of security, fairness, trust, financial needs, contingencies, fears, etc. can indeed bubble up to the surface in unexpected ways during the process of just having such discussions with a trained professional who is familiar with how things work in your state/local jurisdiction, and in mediating things involving family dynamics and histories.

Our Plan for our relatively simple estate and our property/accounts/retirement flows/ insurances, etc, happened to include:

1. Our Revocable Trust

2. Certification of Trust

3. Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care Decisions for each of us.

4. General Durable Powers of Attorney for each of us.

5. "Pour-over" Wills for each of us.

6. A Trust Transfer Deed (which transferred our real property to the trust, along with a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report with prevented reassessment in our jurisdiction)

We also took care move any other assets either into the Trust or to deal with them by changing Named % Beneficiaries for things like pay-on-death for various accounts or deposits or funds.

We also reviewed all retirement accounts for any survivor beneficiary updates and insurance accounts for beneficiary updates.

We did this during the 2nd year after my initial incurable Stage IV diagnosis after my initial PSA of 5,006 had come down into the 1.0 range with initial treatment. It helped a lot to give us both some more peace of mind for the journey ahead. That was over 4 years ago. Glad we did it. We'd seen the muddle of a mess that was left behind with some of our older relatives during their final months of life, and thereafter.

Charles

[timotur in reply to ctarleton]

Good info Charles, need to do this with my wife.

[Hidden]

uslegalwills.com/

This is an excellent choice to get your wills done online.

Wills are not something that we want to do but once they are done the peace of mind is priceless. We then can get busy with the things that are important to us.

Gratitude is a wonderful focal point in these difficult times.

I am grateful for this wonderful hub of information and connection.

Warmest Regards,

[Darryl Partner in reply to Hidden]

Cheers

[Hidden]

uslegalwills.com/

this one is the US link.

[Currumpaw]

Hey Darryl!

Thanks! Needed info for some of us. Unfortunately it --could--become a doom and gloom thing for us now.

This from NPR a day ago:

npr.org/2020/03/21/819645036

As Darryl pointed out, it is time to "tidy" things up.

It seems that at high levels of government and among those entities providing health care there is a discussion being had and decisions being made should Coronavirus take hold here in the US as it has in some countries.

I read this morning that Italy which was not treating those aged 80 and over now have lowered that age to those aged 60 and over. They are hit hard with 793 deaths on Saturday.

My neighbor who holds onto a nickel so tightly when spending it before it leaves her fingers that the buffalo is castrated, (appropriate analogy for his site? Damn! GBUA!--'God Bless Us All'), called her lawyer a couple years ago. She was told that she could rewrite her will herself by using her present will as a template, just changing the amounts to her beneficiaries, which is what she wanted to do. To make it legal it would need to be notarized. A manager at our local bank, a notary, did the dead with the stamp for FREE! Be certain that doing that is accepted in your state of residence if you want to do that. I am amazed that her lawyer told her that could be done. She can be persistent!

Uhhh--I think I cursed and then asked for God's blessings in the last paragraph--any clergy here to intercede for me?

Stay calm, take the necessary precautions and do what you can to keep your immune system at the best it can now be. I don't want to see any names absent from the site--get my drift?

This is a good group of men and women!

Currumpaw

[Balsam01]

I think that one should see a local attorney to get your basic documents set up and to conform to State law. I have been in domestic relations cases where people have brought in divorce/MDA documents they obtained off the internet and the judge just went off, politely of course. None of those docs conformed to State law or even local rules. I have been in Bankruptcy cases where folks have brought in Internet-based forms and caused serious economic harm to themselves like ignoring State exemptions. In both situations, the Judges told them to get a local attorney.

[j-o-h-n]

Just Spend it all before you're Spent....

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Monday 03/23/2020 11:45 AM DST

[Currumpaw in reply to j-o-h-n]

Hey j-o-h-n!

I saw a post by someone on another site while looking up a link. It made me immediately think of you!

"A few years back a friend of mine was all excited when he read about a digital exam for prostrate cancer....until he realized what they meant by "digital"

Currumpaw!

[j-o-h-n in reply to Currumpaw]

hahaha (giggling here - thanks)...

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Monday 03/23/2020 1:00 PM DST