By Ilya Lyubimskiy, JD, CPA | Estate Planning & Probate Attorney and Author of I Wish I Talked to You Sooner
“Do I really need an estate planning attorney, or can I just do this online?” This raises an important question: should you hire an attorney to help you with estate plannining?
It is a fair question.
Today, you can create a will, power of attorney, or even a trust from your couch. Online estate-planning services can be fast, convenient, and considerably less expensive than hiring an attorney.
For some people, that may be a reasonable place to start.
But there is an important distinction that often gets lost in the conversation.
Creating estate-planning documents and creating an estate plan are not the same thing.
A form can record the answers you give it.
The harder question is whether you are being asked the right questions in the first place.
As an estate planning attorney, that is where I see the biggest difference between DIY documents and professional planning.
What Online Estate-Planning Tools Do Well
Let’s give DIY tools some credit.
They are popular for good reasons.
They can make estate planning:
- more affordable;
- less intimidating;
- available outside normal business hours; and
- accessible to someone who might otherwise do nothing at all.
For a person with a very straightforward situation a document generation service may seem appealing. But don’t expect more than a document generation service.
And sometimes getting something in place is better than allowing the pursuit of the “perfect” estate plan to become another excuse for doing nothing.
That is particularly true if the alternative is continuing to say:
“I’ll deal with it someday.”
Estate planning should not become inaccessible simply because someone cannot afford the most comprehensive option available.
The real issue is understanding what you are getting and what you are not.
An Online Form Knows What You Tell It
Most document-generation systems work by asking questions.
Are you married?
Do you have children?
Who should receive your property?
Who should serve in a particular role?
You answer.
The system uses those answers to generate documents.
That process can work well when the person completing the questionnaire understands the questions, accurately describes the situation, and knows what consequences flow from the answers.
But consider this:
What if you do not know that a beneficiary designation on an account may affect your plan?
What if you assume your house is titled one way when it is actually titled another?
What if you create a trust but do not understand that assets may need to be transferred or otherwise coordinated with it?
What if you name your children as beneficiaries without considering whether they are minors?
What if you have a blended family and assume “everything to my spouse, then to the children” will automatically produce the result you intend?
The form cannot necessarily warn you about a problem that never appears in your answers.
That is the blind-spot problem.
The Hardest Estate-Planning Mistakes Often Aren’t in the Documents
One of the recurring themes throughout I Wish I Talked to You Sooner is that estate-planning mistakes frequently occur between the documents.
Your will says one thing.
Your retirement account says another.
Your trust exists, but the house was never transferred to it.
Your powers of attorney name people who are no longer appropriate.
An old life-insurance beneficiary designation contradicts your current intentions.
Your family has no idea where the documents are stored.
Every individual document might look perfectly respectable.
The overall plan can still fail.
That is why I think one of the biggest limitations of DIY estate planning is not necessarily the form itself.
It is coordination.
A functional estate plan asks how the documents, assets, beneficiaries, decision-makers, and practical instructions work together.
A Will Does Not Control Everything You Own
This is a perfect example.
Someone completes an online will and carefully divides everything equally among three children.
Done.
Except the largest retirement account names only one child as beneficiary.
The will may not solve that inconsistency.
Likewise, jointly owned property, life insurance, payable-on-death accounts, trust assets, and other property may be controlled by ownership or beneficiary arrangements outside the will.
So the planning question is not merely only who gets what. It is “How will each of my assets actually transfer?”
That is a different analysis.
Trusts Create an Even Bigger DIY Challenge
It is one thing to generate a trust document.
It is another thing to implement the trust.
A revocable living trust may need to be coordinated with real estate, financial accounts, beneficiary designations, and other property.
Simply signing the trust does not magically place everything you own inside it.
This is where someone can spend money creating a sophisticated-looking binder and reasonably believe the job is complete.
Years later, the family discovers that major assets were never properly coordinated with the trust and may still require probate or other administration.
The problem was not necessarily that the trust document was poorly written.
The problem was that no one helped finish the job.
A trust should not merely exist. It should be positioned to accomplish what you created it to do.
Signing the Documents Correctly Matters Too
Estate-planning documents are legal documents.
That means the manner in which they are executed matters.
Requirements can differ depending on the document and the law of the state involved. Witnesses, notarization, signatures, and other formalities can affect whether a document works as intended.
A reputable online service may provide instructions.
But ultimately, someone still has to follow them.
I have reviewed DIY estate-planning documents where people believed their planning was complete, only to discover problems with signatures, execution, or inconsistent provisions.
That is particularly frustrating because the person tried to plan.
The mistake was not a lack of good intentions.
It was assuming that generating the document meant the legal process was finished.
When Does Working With an Estate Planning Attorney Become More Valuable?
There is no perfect dividing line.
But professional guidance becomes increasingly valuable as the number of moving parts increases.
Consider getting personalized advice when your situation involves things such as:
- a blended family or second marriage;
- minor children;
- a loved one with special needs;
- significant real estate;
- property in more than one state;
- a business;
- complicated beneficiary wishes;
- family conflict;
- concerns about creditors or taxes;
- a trust;
- beneficiaries who should not receive an inheritance outright; or
- uncertainty about whom to name in important decision-making roles.
You might also benefit from professional planning for a much simpler reason. You do not know what you do not know. That is not an insult. It is why we hire professionals in unfamiliar areas.
What Are You Actually Paying an Estate Planning Attorney For?
If estate planning were simply typing names into forms, there would be a pretty compelling argument for always choosing the cheapest forms.
But the value of professional planning should not be the word-processing.
You are paying someone to help identify problems.
To ask follow-up questions.
To explain alternatives.
To notice inconsistencies.
To tell you when the seemingly obvious choice may have an unintended consequence.
To coordinate documents with assets.
And to help design a plan around the family and financial life you actually have.
In my practice, the most valuable part of an estate-planning meeting is often not the answer a client came in looking for.
It is the issue they did not know they needed to ask about.
Professional Planning Should Still Be Understandable
There is another side to this.
Hiring an attorney should not mean surrendering control of the process.
You should understand your own estate plan.
You should know what your will does.
If you have a trust, you should understand why you have it and how assets are coordinated with it.
You should know whom you named to make decisions.
You should understand how major assets are expected to transfer.
A hundred pages of legal documents that nobody has explained to you is not my idea of successful planning.
Professional advice should create more clarity, not more mystery.
Is DIY Estate Planning Better Than Doing Nothing?
Sometimes, yes.
I would rather see someone thoughtfully begin addressing their planning than remain frozen because they believe there are only two choices: an elaborate attorney-designed plan or nothing at all.
A DIY tool may help someone begin thinking about beneficiaries, decision-makers, incapacity, and what should happen after death.
That has value.
The danger comes from assuming:
“I printed the documents, so I know everything is taken care of.”
Maybe it is.
Maybe it is not.
The complexity of the documents does not determine the complexity of your estate plan.
Your life does.
Ask Yourself Whether Your Life Is Really “Simple”
People often tell me: “My estate is simple.”
Sometimes they are absolutely right.
Other times, after a few questions, we discover:
They own a home.
They have several retirement accounts.
They have children. One child is still a minor.
They remarried. Their spouse also has children.
They own a small business.
An old life-insurance policy names someone they have not spoken to in years.
And they want to make sure one beneficiary does not receive a large inheritance all at once.
That may not require an extraordinarily complicated estate plan.
But it is not just a fill-in-the-blank problem either.
Before deciding whether DIY planning is enough, take inventory of your assets and how significant it would be if the transfer of the assets does not go as you hope.
The Best Estate Plan Is Not Necessarily the Most Expensive One
Professional planning costs more than downloading forms.
That is unavoidable.
But more expensive does not automatically mean better.
A good estate plan should fit the person’s actual needs.
Someone with a straightforward situation should not be pushed into unnecessary complexity simply because complicated plans cost more.
Likewise, someone with a complicated family or financial situation should not choose a bare-bones plan solely because it is cheaper.
The goal is not to buy the most documents. It is to have the right amount of planning for the problems you actually need to solve.
Don’t Confuse Paperwork With Planning
This is really the larger point.
Technology has made legal documents easier to obtain.
That can be a good thing.
But technology has not eliminated family dynamics.
It has not eliminated unusual assets.
It has not eliminated beneficiary mistakes.
It has not eliminated questions about incapacity, trusts, taxes, real estate, fiduciaries, or minor children.
And it has not eliminated the need to make sure all the pieces work together.
That is one of the central ideas behind I Wish I Talked to You Sooner.
A will is a document.
A trust is a document.
A power of attorney is a document.
An estate plan is what happens when those documents, your assets, your people, and your intentions all work together.
Whether you build that plan with professional guidance or begin with a DIY tool, do not stop at the paperwork.
Instead you should ask “Will this actually work for my family when I’m no longer there to explain what I meant?” That is the standard that matters.
Learn more about I Wish I Talked to You Sooner and how to avoid the estate planning mistakes families too often discover when it is already too late.
About the Author
Ilya Lyubimskiy, JD, CPA, is a Colorado estate planning and probate attorney, Certified Public Accountant, and founder of Premier Legacy Law. He is the author of I Wish I Talked to You Sooner: How to Avoid the Worst Estate Planning Mistakes. Through his legal practice, he helps individuals and families navigate estate planning, probate, and trust administration with an emphasis on practical planning and avoiding preventable problems.
