Recipe for Disaster: Downloading Legal Documents

The value an estate planning attorney brings you, vs. just downloading documents yourself online, is a discussion Andrea Lee frequently addresses. They are who will advocate for you. If you're a senior, an estate planning attorney or an elder law attorney is worth their weight in gold. Andrea Lee from Legacy Estate Planning joins Suzanne Newman on the Answers for Elders podcast to talk about the benefits of hiring an elder law attorney.

Andrea says, “Number one, it's extremely important when you're preparing estate planning documents to ensure they're exactly properly done. The laws are constantly changing, and unfortunately, if someone downloads a form and it's not in tune with the existing laws, it's not going to achieve their goals... If an individual signs, say, a power of attorney document and then it's not enforceable or doesn't give the right powers, it doesn't give the right date of being effective — if there are problems with it, then the individual who signed that usually has become incapacitated when somebody else is trying to use that document. There's no cure for that."

"Downloading documents and simply filling them out is really a recipe for disaster, because if they are not properly done, if they don't go right, there isn't a way to fix it after the fact... I have had clients who I represented years ago, or the children of clients I represented in drafted documents for many years ago and call me up and say, mom and dad moved twice since they met with you and now mom's in a facility and we can't find original documents, but we need an original to sell the house. There are laws that state, if I'm the attorney who drafted the document... I can make it happen that a copy is accepted as much as an original. Whereas if you've downloaded a form and you've signed it yourself, there isn't any way legally that I know of where we can get copies accepted, if nobody has a copy of that and can't attest to the fact that this copy is identical to someone's original document.”

"I meet with my clients and I always say to them, it's my job to think of the worst things that can happen and then to mitigate it. What if this happens? You know, what if, unfortunately, your entire family is wiped out in an earthquake, just these crazy things that can happen, and then how can we prepare a plan that would still work? Yeah. What if there was an earthquake and the house came tumbling down — we've seen tragedies as recently as the fires in Southern California, where people have lost homes, they've lost everything. And those things happen. And that's actually another compelling reason to retain an attorney to draft documents.”

“I think it's everybody's hope that their agent, who they select and name the documents, advocate properly for the principle. So right when I sign that health care power of attorney, when I sign that power of attorney, that financial power of attorney, whatever documents that I execute, the hope is always at the agent I've named properly advocate for me. But the reality is so many agents lack the education, they lack the experience, they lack the knowledge to truly be a fantastic advocate for their loved ones...”

Learn more:

• About Andrea Lee
• Legacy Estate Planning website
• Legacy Estate Planning podcasts

Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks.