Not just no, but hell no . . .

Courtesy of Prof. Beyer's excellent site, he alerts us to another of the DIY articles on estate planning.

Like I said in the title, not just no, but hell no. Don't. Do. It.

Anything you do yourself is a fraction of the cost of paying a professional. And if you don't do it for a living, you probably do it crappy. Thems the breaks man. Sorry. If you don't do it crappy, it had better be a damn fine hobby. But who does estate planning as a hobby? That ranks right up there with doing double entry bookkeeping just for fun. "Oh man, I just love it when the debits and credits sum up!"

I can come up with several reasons not to use these "will kits" to do your own estate planning.

1) You won't get it right.

There are 50 states. Each has its own set of laws regarding estate distribution. The book you are reading MIGHT take all of them into account. I mean, for instance, here in Texas, did you specify that you wanted unsupervised probate? Did you make sure the executor gets to serve without bond? And did you put the self proving affidavit at the back? Thought so.

2) Even if you're a lawyer, you won't get it right.

At my current position, which I like to refer to as "not strictly legal . . . . . " I've spent the past four years reviewing wills and trusts. About 10% of those are what we refer to in the bidness as "good".

One of the problems in law, and probably all knowledge professions, is that you don't know what you don't know. When I first started working in estate planning, I thought I had a handle on it. I was sooooorely mistaken. And I did it for a living! Granted there were extenuating circumstances for my former crappitude, but they don't bear repeating. Lets just say I managed to hook up with some legal eagles who remind me of the Fezzig Quote: "Ever hear of Plato? Aristotle? Moronth." These guys are seriously stout and they showed me the multitudes of errors I had inadvertantly been committing. Even with a law degree. Even with an advanced law degree in taxation.

But regular Joe lawyers will tell their clients they can do wills. And they can give you a basic document that most likely works. And they don't consider all the things that a top shelf planner does. What do you go to your primary care physician for? Yeah. The cold. What do you go to the cardiac surgeon for? Yeah, thought so. Your will is not a cold.

Remember, the whole phrase is "Jack of all trades, master of NONE". And we are talking about lawyers here.

3) It could cost more in the long run.

And really, I'm not opposed to someone doing a little bit of law for themselves. There's a lot that someone can do and I don't want this to sound like I'm trying to protect the guild. It's just my honest opinion that you won't do it well, you probably won't do it right, and your best hope is that if you screw up, the court takes pity on your family who has to live the consequences.

If you screw it up, and there's a high chance of that, you may cost your family more in court costs and legal fees than it would have cost you to get the will done right.

The going rate around these parts for a will, with decent tax planning in the back, all the nice bells and whistles is somewhere between $1-2,000. Yes, pricey. I agree.

Now, what does it cost for you to do your own will, and then have your family have some lawyer explain to the probate court "what you really meant"?

Hourly cost for the attorney: (We'll go low and say she's a $200 an hour woman): okay, so you meet with her: 1 hour. She prepares the court filings 1 hour. She researches whatever weird issues your "freestyle" will has caused. 2 hours. She goes to court on your behalf. 1 hour. Yay. You've just spent $1,000.

And I'm assuming she gets it done in those 5 hours. I think I'm being highly unrealistic (on the low side) about the time it will take her to fix things. If she doesn't, the bill just goes up. What if there's a contest, i.e., someone else is arguing for a different interpretation of the will?

Getting a professionally done will is some insurance against this kind of scenario.

Those are some of the reasons, and I'm not even getting into the very human issues, such as interpreting all law in your own favor. We all do it. I've got relatives that do that. Or when they don't like the result, believe I must be lying or something, that the result I'm suggesting can't possibly be right.

Update: I've been thinking I've been a bit harsh. In fairness if I'm not opposed to folks self-helping and want to prevent the guild mentality, I ought to get the book and see if it would work for someone. Although, I loved the reviews on Amazon. All universally positive. It doesn't appear that any of them is a lawyer. I have no idea how you'd recognize sugar from shine-ola in that case. Penny wise and pound foolish can apply here too.