CAN JUST ANYONE PREPARE A WILL OR TRUST FOR YOU?

 

          There are many areas of the legal world where, with a bit of common sense, honesty and thought, you can take care of business yourself, as well as an attorney could for you (or at least sufficiently to accomplish what you want).

 

         I do not believe that the area of estate planning is one of those do-it-yourself areas.  I say that because of what I have seen and what the law actually provides.

 

          As to someone who wishes to do his own estate planning, I have seen at least a couple of the on-line will preparation kits, and one or two homemade wills, and I have not been impressed.  They either (a) didn’t conform to Illinois law, or (b) they didn’t conform to the client’s wishes (as I found out after talking with the client what he actually wanted).  You can use a form, but is it the right one?  You probably don’t know.  That is part of what the attorney brings to the table.  Just as with a doctor, you could buy medicine, but is it the right medicine for your condition?  That takes a doctor’s professional opinion.

 

         If not yourself, can you just have one of those out-of-state Trust mills prepare one for you, and save you the local attorney’s fee? This is where the statutory law intrudes to protect consumers from those rip-off outfits.  The Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (at 815 ILCS 505/2BB) provides that “The assembly, drafting, execution and funding of a living trust document or any of those acts by a corporation or a nonlawyer is an unlawful practice …”

 

         Your estate plan carries such important consequences for your loved ones after your death, that you really don’t want to take a chance that the estate plan drafted by some clerk in California, is going to be acceptable in Illinois or actually deal with your estate the way you wanted it to.  That is why the legislature created the not-so-common provision relating specifically to trusts. It is way too important an aspect of your life to allow it to be left to some possibly unqualified (not to mention impersonal and distant) person without a law degree.  Want an example of a botched estate plan?  See Herlehy v. Marie V. Bistersky Trust Dated May 5, 1989, 1-09-0038, 2010 WL 5487547 (Ill. App. Ct. Dec. 23, 2010).

 

         If you are intent on doing your own estate planning, you may do so.  But I don’t like having to clean up an estate after a person is gone, and deal with a grieving survivor who doesn’t understand why things are taking so long and costing so much money to make right.

contact me

office hours

location

home