Do-it-Yourself Wills Can Often Do More Harm Than Good

Preparing a Will with a Qualified Estate Planning Attorney is the Best Way to Know that Your Wishes Will Be Carried Out

Download Your Free Report on Wills Today

Wills are great Estate Planning tools to make sure your wishes will be carried out according to your plan. It can greatly reduce the chance of confusion about how an estate should be administered upon death. Each state has their own specific laws governing Wills. Knowing the rules and formalities of your state is an important step in preparing your Will. An Estate Planning attorney has the legal expertise it takes to assist you in drafting a Will to ensure that all legalities are met, and can greatly reduce the chances of your Will being contested.

What is a Will?

A Will is legal document that specifies how non-trust assets are to be distributed to beneficiaries upon death. Working with an Estate Planning attorney to draft your Will is not required, but recommended.

Many people attempt to construct a Will on their own by using books and online resources. Do-It-Yourself Wills are alternatives to hiring an attorney to draft your Will. Though these are inexpensive methods of creating a Will, they are vulnerable to user error. Fill out that form incorrectly, and your Will can be void.

Avoid Do-It-Yourself Wills

Preparing a legal document like a Will requires a lot of legal know-how, and because it deals with the nature of your estate, and possibly your dependents, this is not the area to cut costs. A Will with errors can have detrimental results for your estate, and more costly than you had anticipated. Done incorrectly, and risk having your Will found to be invalid. An invalid Will means that a Probate Court administers your estate, and they decide how your assets are distributed.

Dangers of Do-It-Yourself Wills also include:

  • Forgetting to update your Will when changes in your estate occur
  • An increase in the likelihood that your Will could be contested
  • Not having an Estate Planning attorney explain estate taxes could result in a failure to minimize estate taxes
  • Not understanding other Estate Planning issues such as asset protection, avoiding probate, liquidity and successor planning

Learn more about your options by downloading our free Report, “Dangers of Do-It-Yourself Wills and Living Trusts.” You’ll learn:

  1. A deeper definition of Wills
  2. How you can control when your heirs receive their inheritance through time based milestones
  3. How to continue to provide for disabled dependents
  4. How to provide for children from multiple marriages
  5. How to create Trusts that will continue to provide income to your heirs for years to come

Featured Blog Post

Are DIY Wills Perfectly Acceptable?

There are websites out there selling DIY legal documents. Among their offerings are last will worksheets and downloads. These purveyors of generic template documents would like you to believe that it is simple to plan your own estate.

The truth is that you would do well to steer clear of these notions. You may say that it is easy for estate plan read more–>

Iowa: Bettendorf, Davenport & Cedar, Clinton, Dubuque, Henry, Jackson, Johnson, Muscatine, Rock Island, and Scott Counties
Illinois: Moline, Quad Cities & Henry, Rock Island, Mercer, and Whiteside Counties