Preparing Will and Power of Attorney

[luvdoggiez]

HI there everyone,

We are both in our Mid fifties and know that we need to get our Wills and Power of Attorneys taken care of. We wanted to know if anyone can direct us to a reliable on-line source for preparing these documents that others have followed and found useful.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Safe Travels!

[Kiawah]

If you know what you need/want already, understand estate planning and can think like a lawyer, and want to do some custom tweaking....this is an excellent reference. It is two large binders with paper thin pages, many many examples. Particularly good for trusts. It then also has a CD with all of the those same forms readily available for editing if you desire. It is a forms manual, which has forms available to 'fill in the blanks'.

Nothing beats an estate attorney however, who is familiar with state nuances. I figured I'd get it to allow me to explore all the different options first, which would make your time with a lawyer extremely productive. I bought one, but you may find a copy at a larger library with a law section.

https://lrus.wolterskluwer.com/store...m-1-0735536813

[lonfu]

may I suggest a living trust. I set one for my mother and it kept us out of probate court. Kept thing simple and to the point. There are many software programs that you can buy. They are pretty straight forward and easy to understand. The one I used is no longer published so I can't recommend any one specific. You should pay no more than $60 for such software. Some folks try to make it more complicated than it is and so charge an arm and leg for fancy notebooks, leather binders and such. Most software includes the variances of the different states.

[lonfu]

Google: living trust software.....

[momdoc]

I would use and estate lawyer in your home state as "rules" are different in some states. Besides you will you should set up POA, medical directives and a living trust to keep you family from having to deal with probate and saves money as well. Though I must admit I do not plan on leaving much money behind momdoc

[SpaceNorman]

Being that we're simply sharing opinions on this topic - I'll add mine. As far as I'm concerned the "right way to go" will depend on the laws of your state - and the size/complexity of your estate. If the total value of your estate is less than 5.43 million, you can pass it to your heirs without any estate taxes and/or gift taxes.

Lawyers get $$$ for drafting "Living Trusts" ... and trusts can introduce some interesting complications. For example - my DW's uncle in the last few months of his life felt compelled to do something with his affairs. He had a lawyer set up a "Living Trust" ... and then purchased an annuity that along with other assets was put into the trust. The folks selling the annuity assured and reassured him that upon his death - his heirs would be able to cash out the annuity with no penalties. However, they wrote the annuity such that the "Living Trust" was the annuitant. Upon his death, we came to find out that because his "Living Trust" was the annuitant - and that the because the "living trust" never dies .... the annuity would be subject to early withdrawal penalities for nearly 15 years. Clearly it was his/our fault for not knowing this - BUT, given that he was clear regarding his wishes that his heirs be able to cash out the annuity without penalty - we feel pretty strongly that the lawyer/financial advisor who sold him the annuity (knowing that he was selling to an 86 year old man with stage 4 prostate cancer) took advantage our uncle. Our uncle spent nearly $1,200 to have the "living trust" set up .... and then his heirs ate $25K worth of early withdrawal penalties to not have wait out 15 years on the annuity.

Conversely - my parents' simple will went thru probate. It was a simple process ... fill out a simple "inventory" of assets (pay a minor fee) ... and file a report explaining how the assets were distributed was FAR simpler. It cost us nothing to draft the wills - and ended up costing us less than $500 in probate filing fees.

If your estate is under the threshold at which inheritance taxes come into play - and you've got simple distribution requirements (i.e., split it evenly between the kids) - probate may not be the terrible thing that the lawyers will be warning you to avoid.

[luvdoggiez]

Here is a little more on our situation. We have one child who is in good stead with us. We drive a 2003 allegro bus, we tow a 2008 Honda CRV, we also have two laptops from WalMart, a low end DSLR, 15 year old pots, pans and dishes. Clothes that are mostly bought either from Thrift stores, JC Penny's or Costco. We will be living off of Social Security, a small pension and a little bit in a 401K. We live in California. If that helps to clarify anyones suggestions, that would be great. Thanks!

[dons2346]

With just one child, I would forgo any kind of trust. We thought we needed a trust also but when we talked to a real lawyer (not an on line one) his advice was to do straight wills and be done with it. The cost to draw up two wills was under $300 IIRC. We also have only one kid so she would get everything anyway. You have to set up what happens if I die first, versus wife dies first versus where things go if our daughter dies first and who finally gets all our "stuff" when the last one dies. If the wife dies last, everything goes to her college alma mater, If I die last everything go to the Elks Home in VA. If the daughter dies last, we really won't care what she does

[powercat_ras]

This is not totally online but a book and software that runs on your computer.

I used Quicken Willmaker Plus - Book and Software, $ 25 from Amazon.com. I used it to crank out a will, health care directives, and durable power of attorney. It also will generate a document putting all the information in one place that would be needed if something would happen triggering the need for the will or power of attorney. It also prints out the instructions on how to make the documents legal and for the holder of the documents. Willmaker Plus 2017

[Mr_D]

Originally Posted by momdoc

I would use and estate lawyer in your home state as "rules" are different in some states. Besides you will you should set up POA, medical directives and a living trust to keep you family from having to deal with probate and saves money as well. Though I must admit I do not plan on leaving much money behind momdoc

Having gone through this with my late wife I can say it is definitely necessary. To get Cindy (late DW) on the liver transplant list they required us to have all this in place. Really helped to be able to show the Dr's at the hosp. what her final wishes were, plus it helped me to decide when to stop treatment and accept the outcome.
The wills were done many years ago and never needed changing since everything went to the surviving spouse. The POA and medical directives were new. We had also agreed years ago that we wanted to be cremated.

[oatmeal]

Originally Posted by Kiawah

If you know what you need/want already, understand estate planning and can think like a lawyer, and want to do some custom tweaking....this is an excellent reference. It is two large binders with paper thin pages, many many examples. Particularly good for trusts. It then also has a CD with all of the those same forms readily available for editing if you desire. It is a forms manual, which has forms available to 'fill in the blanks'.

I really think a person would be better served by spending $535 on lawyer time than on this practice and forms manual. People go to law school for a reason.

As for wills vs. living trusts...

While living trusts may be the appropriate estate planning tool for someone, they're not without complexity. There are advantages, but they come at a price, like having to re-title all of your assets. And a literal price, as well: you'll pay more for a living trust than for a will.

If you're told there's an estate tax advantage with a living trust, run the other way. If you're told this at a free lunch given by some financial advisors, run extra fast and ask yourself why they're willing to pay you to listen to their pitch.

Anything a living trust can accomplish with respect to estate taxes can be done with a will, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not to be trusted.

If you're told that avoiding probate is a good thing, ask specifically why, and if it has to do with fees, ask what those fees actually are. It varies among states, but as SpaceNorman pointed out, in some jurisdictions probate isn't expensive. It can be in some, though.

Does the forms manual recommended above cover this? I looked at the table of contents and didn't see anything.

To the OP: Sorry, I can't answer your question about an online source. If you're willing to pay a lawyer, you might try your city's local bar association--they sometimes have lawyers they refer to, and sometimes the first visit is pretty cheap.

[Kiawah]

Does the forms manual recommended above cover this? I looked at the table of contents and didn't see anything.

I'll answer a couple different things that have been posted.

In that resource, usually in front of each form example, is a paragraph that describes 'why' or the 'purpose', before then giving a number of examples. Something like: "One of the main purposes of wills for younger clients is to name the guardians for their children in the even that both parents dies. While this form appoints the same person as guardian of both the person and property of the testator's minor children, there's no reason different people couldn't be appointed. Another alternative is to appoint one person as guardian of both the person and property of children, but to create a trust to hold the bulk of the estate and to name one or more other persons as trustee. This section is usually placed after the naming of the executor section."

And it has all of the health care directives and POA's etc to make a complete estate planning package.


HOWEVER, I prefaced my initial post by saying "If you know what you need/want already.......". In estate planning, "documents" are the last step of the process and the easy part of just putting into writing what it is that you want to have done. You figure out what it is that you want to have happen, and then you put in place the documents to support that.

How accounts are titled is important, joint w/rights of survivorship gets handled differently than joint tenants in common. Accounts with beneficiaries (eg IRA's) pass to whomever is listed on that individual asset as the beneficiary, irregardless of what might be written in a will or trust document.

So a lawyer/estate planner helps you by understanding your particular situation, suggesting how you might want to set things up to achieve what you want to have done.

In my case, I had some non-typical needs that I felt I needed to plan for and have built a sizable estate, so began researching who were some of the country's top estate planners. Although we had estate documents in place already, our needs were changing and I needed a new plan. I came across the resource mentioned above, and wanted to take my time learning as much as I could before sitting down with a lawyer. It was my way to help become educated on the different types of things that might get suggested, and 'why' they might be used. Quite frankly, after reading thru the binders, it helped gel the type of plan that would best fit my needs, and helped tremendously with a lawyer discussion. There are many considerations including tax and asset protection.

After I created my estate plan and got all of the assets properly titled in their respective buckets (and consolidated/simplified), I created a binder for my wife (or survivor) to either execute, or have executed. I call it my "When I die binder". This is the list of assets, this is where they are, this is what is going to happen to each one, and this is what needs to get done to close estate and get the asset ultimately re-titled to the recipient. It's not a question of if we die, it's when we die which could happen at anytime, best be prepared.

Each situation is personal and could be a very simple plan, or a complex one depending on the individual circumstances.

[mricet1005]

Originally Posted by Mr_D

Having gone through this with my late wife I can say it is definitely necessary. To get Cindy (late DW) on the liver transplant list they required us to have all this in place. Really helped to be able to show the Dr's at the hosp. what her final wishes were, plus it helped me to decide when to stop treatment and accept the outcome.
The wills were done many years ago and never needed changing since everything went to the surviving spouse. The POA and medical directives were new. We had also agreed years ago that we wanted to be cremated.

Mr D.

Just went through same thing. We had old Wills but no POA nor health care directives. Last year I was primary care giver for my Dad as he died from lung cancer. So I saw what was important as I helped my Mom. Then this past November my DW was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We recently updated our wills to reflect latest laws and birth of grandkids and also got Durable powers of attorney and health care directives written. We used an attorney to get all of this drafted. He was very helpful and I think better result than using online or computer forms.

As you were last year, our RV travels are on hold as my DW going through chemo. Mid March will have first scan since chemo to see if it is being effective or not. Praying she will be able to travel at some point.

When I retired 18 months ago, this was not the retirement I envisioned!

[SpaceNorman]

Originally Posted by Kiawah

.....I created a binder for my wife (or survivor) to either execute, or have executed. I call it my "When I die binder". ...

The concept of a "when I die binder" is incredibly important!!!! For many couples / families - there's one individual who handles the "family business" while everybody else has little or no familiarity with the nuts and bolts of process. Add in the fact that more and more of us are managing our financial lives on line. If you've "gone green" and opted to receive bills, statements, etc. via email and stopped having "hard copies" sent each month - the old approach of simply waiting by the mailbox to see what comes no longer works. If you're diligent about internet security - you're juggling numerous unique (and hopefully, regularly changing !!!) passwords - which complicate things immensely. Technology has radically changed how most of us conduct our financial affairs these days. I suspect that few of us who are responsible for our family finances have given much thought about how somebody else will step in and pick up the pieces when we're dead and gone.

The reality is that for many families - if the primary "bookkeeper" is suddenly gone or incapacitated - without a comprehensive plan on where everything is as well as how to access it - it can be ruinous!!!!!

Several years ago - we watched first hand what a friend went thru when the husband (an IT nerd who handled all his family's financial stuff....) passed away unexpectedly. His wife was left with no passwords, no specifics regarding the details on their assets (i.e., no account #'s, no comprehensive list of what they had, a sketchy recollection of the names of the banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, etc. that they did business with). With all their financial records on a laptop she couldn't access - she had no idea what the status of her bills were, what her bank balances were, etc. It was a nightmare for her. To this day - she still not certain if she located ALL of their assets.

Her situation was a catalyst for me to take action to ensure that my family didn't end up in that situation were I to cross the finish line unexpectedly. I sat down and started putting together a overview and road map for what I call "the family business". It has become a living document that I update constantly - and includes all of our bank accounts, brokerage accounts and other assets. It includes details about all the credit cards we hold. It includes brief paragraphs about our insurance coverage - life insurance, medical insurance, vehicle insurance, etc. When things change - I update it to show the "what's, when's and why's" of the changes. Over the years - it has grown into a complete repository - and includes things like scanned copies of all our wills, medical POA documents, birth certificates, vehicle titles and other important documents. I keep an "inventory" document of what's in our safe deposit box - with links to scanned copies of each of those documents to that they're instantly accessible to be viewed on my computer screen.

I use Microsoft OneNote to organize all this information - and have a comprehensive backup strategy that I follow religiously to ensure that even if my laptop fails or is stolen - the data is still available. I use a "password safe" where I keep ALL of my passwords stored.

Finally, I drafted a simple one page letter - that's essentially a "quick start" guide ... armed with that letter - and three passwords (the login password to my account on my laptop, the screen saver password and the "passphrase" to open the password safe") - my wife (who is totally non-technical!!!!) can tap one of my two sons (or our financial adviser) - and have instant access to EVERYTHING associated with our finances.

Once or twice a year - I conduct a "fire drill" and insist that my wife retrieves the letter and passwords - and accesses our "family business" data - so that I know she knows what to do the morning I wake up dead.

I sleep a whole lot better knowing that we've got a thorough plan for all this stuff - that is well documented, reasonably secure, always up to date - and tested to prove it works!!!!!