Creating an estate plan is a critical step in securing your financial future and protecting your loved ones. But when it comes to estate planning, you should avoid using online template forms and seek legal advice from an experienced attorney instead.
Terry Law Firm, P.S. provides a highly-personalized level of service to individuals throughout the state of Washington, including in Pierce, King, and Thurston counties. With an office in Sumner, Washington, Attorney Scott Terry serves clients in Orting, Kent, Puyallup, Lake Tapps, Auburn, and Bonney Lake.
What Is Estate Planning?
Estate planning means preparing a plan of action for how you want your assets to be distributed to your heirs after you pass away. With an estate plan, you can document your wishes and specify how you want them to be carried out when you are gone or become incapacitated.
Creating an estate plan is essential for ensuring the financial safety of yourself and those closest to you after you pass away. To ensure that everything goes smoothly, you should avoid using online template forms for this purpose as they don’t take into account personal circumstances or legal considerations unique to each person’s situation. Online templates simply provide generic documents based on broad assumptions about what everyone wants their estate plan to look like after their passing.
Online Forms vs. Estate Planning Attorney
Rather than relying on online template forms for estate planning, it’s always better to get professional advice from a qualified attorney who specializes in this field. Here’s why:
- Personalized guidance. When it comes to estate planning, you want to make sure that your wishes are accurately expressed in the documents that are created. Online forms do not provide any sort of personalized advice or guidance as to how best to use them for your specific situation, which is why there is no guarantee that your wishes will be respected. With an attorney, you get personalized guidance every step of the way.
- Minimize the risk of lawsuits or misinterpretation. Using online template forms to create an estate plan can leave out important details, leaving them open to misinterpretation and potential lawsuits. Hiring a skilled attorney with years of experience in this field to draft an estate plan for you can minimize the risks of lawsuits and misinterpretation.
- Stay up-to-date with current laws. Many of the template forms available on the internet do not take into account state-specific laws or other legal considerations that could be relevant to your situation. An attorney can review existing documents or create new ones while ensuring they meet legal requirements and are up-to-date with current laws governing estates in your state or jurisdiction.
- Eliminate confusing language. Another issue with online template forms is that they often contain confusing language or outdated terminology, which can lead to confusion down the road. An attorney can help you clearly outline your wishes without using confusing language. This way, you can rest assured knowing that everything has been handled correctly and all of your wishes will be respected after death.
- Protect your needs and minimize tax liability. A skilled attorney can provide personalized advice on how best to structure your plan to ensure that it meets your needs and your family’s needs while minimizing any potential tax liability upon death. This cannot be done with an online form, which provides a one-size-fits-all solution and does not provide any strategies for reducing estate taxes.
As you can see, there are plenty of disadvantages to using online forms when creating an estate plan, though these are not the only reasons you should choose an attorney over using online forms. Seek professional advice from an experienced attorney specializing in estate planning to get started with your estate plan.
Attorney Scott Terry Can Help You
Terry Law Firm, P.S. can guide you through the estate planning process and customize a plan specifically tailored to your circumstances while ensuring that it complies with local laws governing estates in Washington. Contact Attorney Scott Terry to request a free consultation and discuss your next steps.
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