You've seen the commercials and ads for online Estate Planning.
It's cheap and quick, but is it the right choice?
I took my questions to Jeff Althaus, a local estate planning attorney with Althaus Law in Northglenn, and he shared a lot of valuable information with me.
The bottom line: No, online estate planning is not worth the risk and it likely won't accomplish your Estate Planning goals!
Here are a few words from Jeff about why he doesn't think online estate planning is a good idea (and read on for more details!)
Want to know more? Here's more about why this isn't a good idea:
☎️ No resource to guide you. You won't have a resource to talk to and make sure that you're doing the paperwork correctly. You just have to guess that it's right and hope that it holds up.
Plus you won't know the "expert" you're working with. Some online document sources will claim to have "attorneys" available to answer questions, but in a lot of cases the only requirement to be an "attorney" for those companies is to have gone to law school, sometimes it's not even someone who has passed the bar.
This person may also have never written a will in their life. The attorney you receive advice from may be a bankruptcy lawyer or a lawyer who has only had dog bite cases.
🌎 Not state-law specific. Massive online companies provide general services across all states. Even though they claim to comply with local laws, that just means they watered down their plans so much that they comply with everyone's laws at the lowest possible level. This means you'll likely still end up in probate because your documents don't address the specific laws of your state.
🪦 You won't know if you mess up! If you do mess up your DIY document, you'll never know, because if they're being used, you're no longer in this world.
💸 Money-saving plans may backfire! The DIY documents are affordable, but if you get them wrong, your estate will end up paying tens of thousands of dollars to fix what could have already been done.
🏡 You can lose your house or assets! In a personal story shared by Jeff, a fellow attorney, who did not specialize in estate planning, tried to set up their own trust. They put the house in an irrevocable trust with someone else as the trustee, and all of a sudden they weren't the owner of the house anymore!
📝 You won't receive valid documents. Online document sources can't provide valid documents, in fact, it's illegal for them to provide valid documents, which means no notarization or witnesses. If you complete online documents and don't take the final step of creating valid documents, the whole process was worthless.
👩⚖️ You won't avoid court. Online documents usually don't avoid probate, which is everyone's goal in estate planning (and is the step that will cost you WAY more money than proper estate planning.)
🛑 You won't accomplish your estate planning goals. It's likely that the documents won't be specific to your goals, which defeats the purpose of doing all that work.
📋 No guidance on the right documents. Online document sites typically will recommend a generic document package to everyone and they won't tell you what specific documents you likely need for a successful estate planning process. Leave something important out, and your estate can lose thousands of dollars.
💲Prices may go up during the process. Online document sites tend to not be transparent about pricing. Many will offer a very low price, but as you add documents the pricing goes up. Pretty soon you are paying a lot more than you intended for a cheap will that doesn't work.
Estate planning is really important and it's worth knowing that everything is in order just the way you want it to be!
Working with a local attorney like Althaus Law who specializes in estate planning will set you up for success and give you peace of mind that everything will go as planned when the time comes.
Want to know what might happen if you don't have Estate Planning in place? Head here!
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Want to know all the good things that happen when you have Estate Planning in place? Head here!
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About Althaus Law
Althaus Law is a local estate planning and probate law firm in Northglenn serving the Denver area.
Their mission is an important one in our community, to give families peace of mind knowing you’re prepared and your family is protected if the worst happens.
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The team at Althaus Law also cares about helping our overall community become better each day. All of their team members volunteer more than 10 hours every month to local nonprofit organizations and the firm is committed to donating a percentage of profits back to charities and nonprofits in Colorado.
Althaus Law
11150 Huron St. Suite 102
Northglenn, Colorado 80234
contact@althauslaw.com
720-547-2319
althauslaw.com/
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This article is sponsored by Althaus Law, a valued Macaroni KID Thornton, Northglenn, Westminster partner. We appreciate your support in reviewing our sponsors' article and hope that their products and services are useful for your family. Macaroni KID Thornton is supported solely by our generous sponsors and they are the reason we can share all the amazing local information with you for free!
