Online Will and Trust Software

[BooBoo]

I am contemplating updating my will. Many years ago I went to a lawyer and was underwhelmed. I have an offer from Trustandwill.com. I think legalzoom.com may be another alternative. Just looking for a standard will,nothing special. I would appreciate any opinions you would like to share.



Thanks,
Boo

 

[Happyras]

Tough call, it would depend on your situation/expectations and state you live in. I like Fore!Trust which is a professional package of estate planning. Years ago when i was learning I had Willmaker, quickly found it to be too simple. However, if you are just doing a basic will, no real estate planning, this can do to cover the basic need. Not great, better than nothing. If you are simply updating your will, it can provide the format. Starting from scratch it would not be my choice to use any cheap software.

 

[rayvt]

For a basic simple will, we used https://www.freewill.com I heard about them when researching about leaving some money to my college.


I don't think most people's wills need to be long or complex. My grandfather's will (prepared by a lawyer in New York) was only 2 pages long.

 

[Ian S]

If you still work for a company or, in my case, have a small pension, you may be able to get a discount on a decent legal plan. In my case, using a local estate planning attorney, we were able to get a complete estate plan set up including wills and living trust at minimal cost apart from the couple hundred $$ annual cost of the legal plan (through MetLife).

 

[OldShooter]

... I would appreciate any opinions you would like to share. ...

As a certified cheapskate I appreciation the attraction of "Free." But we paid up for our estate plan and subsequent updates. As a percentage of our estate, the legal fees are well under 1%. If you're in a similar situation I'd say that is the financial equivalent of "free" but with the huge advantage of probably getting everything right.

 

[Affinity4Investing]

+1 for legalzoom.com's offerings: https://www.legalzoom.com/personal/

 

[Midpack]

As a certified cheapskate I appreciation the attraction of "Free." But we paid up for our estate plan and subsequent updates. As a percentage of our estate, the legal fees are well under 1%. If you're in a similar situation I'd say that is the financial equivalent of "free" but with the huge advantage of probably getting everything right.

+1. The last thing you want is a trust that doesn’t function as planned. Your beneficiaries could end up spending thousands jumping through legal hoops for months. I wouldn’t want that for our beneficiaries.

For perspective, we got a professionally done trust from a top estate attorney with all the bells and whistles for under 0.06% of NW. I am sure there will be updates along the way, but they’ll be less than the original cost, and we’re four years in without any changes needed. My parents had a trust written, it was amended three times in over 20 years, and that wasn’t really even necessary.

https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/financial-legal/info-2020/online-wills-trusts-facts.html

 

[sengsational]

Getting the will witnessed and notarized is a pain for the DIY approach, but lawyers that do wills have it covered.

 

[perrytime]

Timely topic,
All my financial accounts have beneficiaries , I am just want the house to pass to 3 adult children as easy, and cheaply, as possible.
For some reason i don't think a will alone will do it.
In Florida, the Lady Bird Deed is an option. Also called an "Enhanced Transfer on death deed". I think it will be cheaper than revocable trust, most people i talk to paid over $2,000. Even it that is .01% of estate, why go that way if Lady Bird will do it for significantly less.
So far have not found a free form, have found some online places, claiming to make deed for me. Also looking going to look at local paralegal place to do form.
A poster on another forum claimed to be a lawyer with lots of experience in these matters, and says going thru probate is not bad like it used to be, no longer is it a percentage of estate, it is just the hourly rate. So it might be cheaper than a trust.

Any one have experience with a online place generating Lady Bird for Florida?

 

[rayvt]

I don't understand why people say "0.x% of my estate". You pay the lawyer $x000, not percent of estate.
I thought we were cheapskates here.

Anyway....I got a "Transfer on death deed" (known as different names in different states) customized for my state from Rocket Lawyer for free (sign up and cancel within 30 days). It's a simple form, the state law even says the specific wording to use. Got it notarized for free at my bank, had to pay $20 to the county recorder to record it.

In my state, you can avoid probate if the estate is under $100,000. Excluded from the valuation are assets with TOD or beneficiary. House valuation is market value minus mortgage. But that doesn't matter if you've put a TOD deed on it.
The executor just has to fill out a 2 page form and have it recorded at the county courthouse ($20).

So for me, the probateable amount is just what is in the checking accounts, plus the car--but the state recently introduced a TOD registration for cars. CDs are all brokered CDs, so they are in a brokerage account which has TOD.

I have heard too many horror stories about family estates & executors. Probate dragging on for 10+ years.

 

[qwerty3656]

Getting the will witnessed and notarized is a pain for the DIY approach, but lawyers that do wills have it covered.

You can go to your local bank and they should have someone

 

[qwerty3656]

Timely topic,
All my financial accounts have beneficiaries , I am just want the house to pass to 3 adult children as easy, and cheaply, as possible.
For some reason i don't think a will alone will do it.
In Florida, the Lady Bird Deed is an option

I'm in the same boat in Michigan - It is so annoying that we can't just have a TOD to more than 1-person - some states allow it.

 

[pb4uski]

We used WillMaker for our wills, but what would be subject to probate is negligible.

71% of our assets are financial accounts that can have beneficiary designations and ours are easy... 100% to surviving spouse and 50%/50% to our kids as contingent beneficiaries. Another 27% of our assets are real estate that we have enhanced life estate deeds for with our two kids as remaindermen. The remaining 2% are vehicles (2 cars, 2 boats & trailers) that we own jointly and if we both dies simultaneously my understanding is that the kids can get them retitled with our death certificates.

The vehicles would be well below the small estate limit and would avoid probate, so the will is effectively just for spillover items, which will be negligible.

 

[PatrickA5]

I did a WillMaker will for SIL. Her's is easy since she's single and everything will go to DW.

We had a lawyer write up our wills. It was fairly cheap at the time. I'm going to take a look at everything and see if any of our documents need updating.

As things stand right now, everything we own has TOD/POD including house, cars, etc. Probating a Will wouldn't be necessary.

In my state, the TOD House Deed has a flaw in that you can't designate contingent beneficiaries. If one of our 3 kids predeceased us, then the other two kids would split the house - nothing would go to the heirs of the predeceased. I might look into alternative.

 

[rayvt]

I called a couple of lawyers to see how much they charged to do a simple will. As many others here, almost all our assets have TOD/beneficiaries, so no will is needed for that.
Cheapest was $600 for single or $800 for couple.

Yeah, too expensive for simple, low-assets will. I would have paid $100, but for that much I'll go with a cheap or free online will maker.

 

[fh2000]

I set up TOD on our house Grant Deed when they first passed the law allowing it in California. They recently passed a new law that by 2032 the existing TOD law will sunset and I will have to re-submit a new TOD, if I still need it, to have it notarized, and a letter sent to beneficiaries.

My heirs are single now. If by then they are married, and have children, I will then consider living trust instead of using TOD for all my accounts/property.

 

[W2R]

I had a simple will done by a well qualified, experienced local attorney. It cost $300 and I have the peace of mind of knowing it was done correctly.

In Louisiana (as opposed to other states), getting a software will that is done correctly can often be an issue due to the odd mixture of common law, old Roman civil law, and Napoleonic code that we have here. Or so I was told by an eminent local attorney (F's late father), and by all other long time residents that I know here in New Orleans. So anyway, out of deference to him, I got a local lawyer whose education and practice had been entirely in Louisiana.

 

[CRLLS]

Another user of WillMaker. We did wills and other documents with their software. I did not check out the free online places. I was pretty happy with the results. We don't have complications in the heirs' department.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

For a basic simple will, we used https://www.freewill.com I heard about them when researching about leaving some money to my college.

I don't think most people's wills need to be long or complex. My grandfather's will (prepared by a lawyer in New York) was only 2 pages long.

It's not the length or complexity that concerns me, it's that some states may require specific things that others do not, and I would be concerned the free packages may not update that quickly, or may overgeneralize. Still, if you can do your own due diligence it might work out.

 

[rayvt]

I figured a lawyer would cost a couple hundred bucks to do a simple will. I would have gone for $300, with gritted teeth. This is not Louisiana or a community property state, so none of that potential complexity.

But $600-$800 was right out.

 

[ERD50]

It's not the length or complexity that concerns me, it's that some states may require specific things that others do not, and I would be concerned the free packages may not update that quickly, or may overgeneralize. Still, if you can do your own due diligence it might work out.

And my concern is (maybe not justified?), does the local lawyer you go to keep up-to-date?

In general, I have more faith in a well respected company providing this service to many thousands, over an individual handling maybe dozens? Seems like the big company would have the resources to stay on top of things.

Could be moot, from what I've seen, these lawyers just turn to software, and don't even know what it does and can't explain what it churns out anyhow. They could be viewed as a non-value added middleman in some cases.

-ERD50

 

[CRLLS]

And my concern is (maybe not justified?), does the local lawyer you go to keep up-to-date?

In general, I have more faith in a well respected company providing this service to many thousands, over an individual handling maybe dozens? Seems like the big company would have the resources to stay on top of things.

Could be moot, from what I've seen, these lawyers just turn to software, and don't even know what it does and can't explain what it churns out anyhow. They could be viewed as a non-value added middleman in some cases.

-ERD50

My guess is no. MIL's will and trust were over 20 years old. they were written by one lawyer and amended by another. There were several errors introduced in the name of the Trust that were never caught. Only when we read it, did we find there were errors in the name of trust in several places and had them corrected before her passing.

OTOH, our estate documents were from WillMaker a few years back, They didn't keep us up to date either. WE just get offers to purchase newer versions of their software.

Our first Will was written many decades ago by a local attorney and was clearly made by filling in blanks of a standard form and having it retyped. There were no personal computers at that time. In effect, they were no different than what WillMaker does now.

 

[pb4uski]

I had a simple will done by a well qualified, experienced local attorney. It cost $300 and I have the peace of mind of knowing it was done correctly.

In Louisiana (as opposed to other states), getting a software will that is done correctly can often be an issue due to the odd mixture of common law, old Roman civil law, and Napoleonic code that we have here. Or so I was told by an eminent local attorney (F's late father), and by all other long time residents that I know here in New Orleans. So anyway, out of deference to him, I got a local lawyer whose education and practice had been entirely in Louisiana.

Yes, no disrespect but Louisiana is so unusual that I think it is prudent to use an experienced Louisiana attorney rather than WillMaker.

 

[scfr]

Through my public library's web site, I'm able to access Gale Legal Forms, which are state-specific. This is what I used to update our Wills at the very beginning of the pandemic. A friend met us at a UPS store where we had them witnessed and notarized. All we had to pay was the notary fee.

I'm not saying that this is the best option, and I do believe that paying excellent professionals can be worth the cost, but sometimes people have their reasons for wanting and/or needing to go the DIY route. Just wanted to let people know that this might be an option if your library offers it.

 

[Koolau]

Some things you probably can skimp on, but brain surgery and estate planning are a couple I'd spend the money on. YMMV