Why DIY Estate Planning Might Not Meet Your Needs

By Kendel Froese | June 28, 2022

There are dozens of websites that offer free or nominally priced estate planning services. And why not, right? Many of us utilize computer-generated services for a number of areas of our lives, so why not use a low-cost and lightning-fast DIY estate planning website? While technology is great, your unique situation may not be well-served by “copy and paste” or “fill in the blank” estate planning templates. Let me tell you why.

1. Issue Spotting

Have you ever been at an appointment with a professional, such as a doctor or lawyer, and you mention something that seems unimportant to you but the doctor/lawyer latches onto what you meant as a passing comment and asks you additional questions about it? In the legal field, we call that issue spotting (not very clever, I know). Issue spotting is the practice of hearing what your client is telling you and being able to spot what the issues are. A qualified estate planning attorney should be able to spot issues in your life, your family, and your estate that might need additional attention or specific considerations. For example, you might mention to your attorney that you are headed to your lake place in Idaho for the weekend. Your attorney will be curious to know that you own property in another state and may recommend that you create a Revocable Living Trust to hold that property as a part of your estate planning. Likewise, let’s say you tell your attorney you want to gift part of your estate to your sister, and you happen to mention that she is disabled and currently receiving Medicaid benefits. Your attorney is likely to discuss with you the creation of a specific type of trust in your Last Will & Testament that will protect your sister and prevent her from becoming ineligible for government benefits because of inheriting from your estate.

2. Tax Considerations

The estate tax, sometimes casually referred to as the “death tax,” is a tax on a person’s right to transfer property to others upon that person’s death. In Washington state, if your estate is less than $2.193 million, the transfer of your estate upon your death is excluded from the estate tax. If your estate totals more than the $2.193 million exclusion amount, you don’t have to pay the estate tax on the entire amount, but using a formula you pay the tax on the part of your estate that is above and beyond the exclusion amount (of course, when I say “you,” I actually mean that your personal representative takes care of this and pays the tax out of your estate assets, because this all happens after you have passed away). Depending on your situation, if you know your estate is above this exclusion amount, it could make more sense to put certain assets in trusts, pursue specific charitable giving plans, et cetera, as a part of your estate planning. An interdisciplinary team of estate planning attorneys, financial planners, and accountants can partner together to advise you on the best ways to not only achieve your estate planning goals, but to do so in a way that makes the most sense tax-wise. And even if right now your estate is under the exclusion amount, it can be important to start this process with an attorney who can walk with you throughout the years as your assets grow and change, and to ensure you are receiving the best legal advice for your situation. This kind of service simply cannot be provided by DIY estate planning.

3. Cheaper Isn’t Always Better

As a mom of two young kids, and as someone with a slew of financial obligations (hello student loans!), I love a good deal. I can’t wait to tell my husband how I found ground beef on sale or how I had a promo code for this that and the other (at which time he promptly rolls his eyes at me). For many people I talk to, not only do they love a good deal just like I do, the presumed cost of working with an attorney can make a DIY estate planning solution seem awfully tempting. I encourage you to think of estate planning as an investment. Not only are you investing in your future and in the protection of the assets you have worked so hard to accumulate, for folks with kids you are investing in and providing for the future of your children. And regardless of whether you have kids, your estate planning can be your final expression of wanting to leave the world better than it was when you got here. That said, I know paying an attorney for estate planning can be cost prohibitive. If you are reading this post and know you need estate planning but just don’t know how you will swing it financially, please give me a call. I am happy to offer payment plans and to talk about what documents you really need and if there’s a way we can pare them down to the bare bones “you gotta have ‘em” documents.

4. Your Unique Situation - Your Family, Your Values, Everything That Makes You, YOU

To borrow from the TV show Cheers, there is something about going somewhere “where everybody knows your name.” Estate planning, at its core, is about preparing for death. Death is not easy to talk about. Estate planning discussions can be scary and emotional for many reasons, and I believe that any estate planning attorney worth their salt (and worth their fee, for that matter) should come alongside you in this process as a trusted advisor and provide you a comfortable space to have these conversations. I want to know about your family, your values, your goals, any prior experiences you may have had as someone else’s power of attorney or personal representative of an estate… basically, I want to know what makes you, YOU. I strive to not only get estate planning off your to-do list by drafting your estate planning documents, I want to ensure the process is as easy, comfortable, and pleasurable as possible. (Can you believe I just said working with an attorney could be pleasurable? You bet I did, and I truly believe it. Let me prove it to you.)

For more information and to schedule a meeting with me, please contact me. I would be honored to work with you!