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Potential setbacks of doing estate planning on your own

On Behalf of | Sep 26, 2018 | Firm News

There are numerous online resources available now that promise to make it easy to create wills and other essential legal documents. However, it is critical to remember creating an estate plan is one of the most important things you will do for your family. You need to get it done right, and that is why most people will want to avoid handling such complicated matters on their own.

Even if you believe you can create a will and trust on your own, you do not want to make a simple mistake. It is far too easy to make a disastrous mistake that impacts who will receive what when you pass away.

Legal language contains ambiguities

The law is incredibly precise about what certain words and phrases mean. Writing something incorrectly or leaving out an important sentence can drastically alter how the state will carry out your estate plan. Your children may even lose property or have to pay high tax rates on what they receive. As an example, you may not know what boilerplate language to include at the end of the document, which can significantly affect the meaning of your document.

Laws change all the time

Arizona laws change frequently, and sometimes, those laws affect people’s estate plans. You may need to alter certain provisions of a will or trust to make sure it abides by the new laws. Arizona changed its laws regarding the Arizona Trust Code in 2009, so if you have not updated your estate plan since that time, certain provisions in your trust may not be valid.

No third party 

Without an objective third party, children can have disputes over your will. There have been plenty of cases where children have argued that a sibling coerced a parent into making a given provision. Things become even more complicated when multiple wills exist. When no one else is present when you make a will, no one can say what the your intent was.