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LegalZoom CANNOT create an Estate Plan.
In its “Estate Plan Bundle” LegalZoom provides a will, financial power of attorney and living will.
An estate plan acts as a safety net that helps preserve the value of your assets, minimizes wait times for disbursements, and helps ensure your wishes for your end-of-life care and the legacy you envisioned is carried out.
An estate plan involved much more than form documents and for most should involved a trust to ensure your assets reach the intended parties without the delay and public nature of the probate process, a comprehensive guardianship document for minors and strategy for how best to name and devise your assets to ensure they are available to your loved ones.
Most importantly an estate plan is the best way to display your love and care for those you may leave behind, ensuring they are not burdened with what are daunting and sometimes impossible decisions in your absence.
Legalzoom (and other estate planning tools) do NOT provide legal advice.
This one is pretty simple. LegalZoom DOES NOT provide legal advice. In their own terms and conditions they state “If you need legal advice, LegalZoom can connect you to a licensed and independent attorney.”
Most people would not attempt to rewire their entire house without a licensed electrician. Why leave what you’ve been building all your life, your legacy, to plug and play template?
Details matter in estate planning. Legalzoom is not a person, it cannot understand the details or intricacies of each individual circumstance.
Chose your own adventure books were tons of fun when we were kids. The thing about those books is you could always start over and change the ending. Unfortunately, you can’t do that with your estate plan once you’re no longer around.
A proper estate plan is one of the most important things you can do for your loved ones. In order to do it well, an attorney needs to sit with you, get to know your financial situation, your personal and financial goals, and learn about your vision for yours and your loved ones’ futures. Legal templates cannot do this.
It might be cheap but it will likely cost your estate (i.e., your loved ones) much more to address the errors of a DIY estate plan.
An “estate plan” created using Legalzoom will undoubtedly end up on probate (court) because it’s designed to. Wills go through probate. Probate costs money.
A good estate planning attorney will review your estate plan upon major life events and at least every 3 years. Legalzoom cannot do this.
Things change. A will you draft today can become obsolete at marriage, death of a loved one, divorce, life! When life is crazy, the last thing on your mind is likely to be logging back onto LegalZoom to update your will.
A good estate attorney will plan touch base times with you throughout your life to make sure your estate plan is up-to-date as your circumstances inevitably change.
