In September of 2010, a non-lawyer wrote an article about her experience trying out four different will-making computer programs. This article appeared in the New York Times. After she got all four different wills drafted, she took the wills to an established estate planning lawyer in New York City, and had them reviewed. The results were poor, to say the least. The lawyer found that one of the Wills was so defective that it did not even identify which heirs got which of the author’s assets. Each of the other three wills had different problems, including problems that could harm the probate process. The attorney stated, “The thing that most surprised me is how different your will comes out depending on what program you pick.” Some of the more common problems with the online-made wills include:
If one or more of the beneficiaries you name in your Will passes away before you, and you haven’t named an alternate beneficiary to take that person’s place, then your property passes to your heirs-at-law. If you’re not a lawyer, chances are you don’t know who your heirs-at-law are, and you probably do not want your property going to them. A Will that does not name contingent beneficiaries may have the result of taking your property away from your control, and giving that control to the state through the state’s intestacy statutes. Most online websites forget or do not have a contingent beneficiary estate plan as part of their package, and this can cause all sorts of problems for people with relatively simple life situations. If your family’s situation is more complex than normal, say you are a blended family or you have complex estate, than contingent beneficiaries and similar provisions can make your estate planning problems even worse. Qualified estate planning attorneys know these problems and can work with you to figure out what is the best plan for your estate planning needs. An experienced attorney can adapt, and should will know what the appropriate questions to ask for your situation, and no computer estate planning model can do that.