Did anyone else read that as "Wool Kilts"? Maybe I SHOULD get that kilt I had the dream about.

@GitEmSteveDave_@Gmail.comNeedsAWaveInvite: You would look great in a kilt

Those kits are really not enough to cover most situations and creating a will that you want is not that difficult so skip the kit and DIY.

This smacks of the same kind of "arguments" posed by realtors to maintain their stranglehold on the market. For probably 90% of people, straightforward directives such as the ones you get in draft form in will kits are more than adequate. It's only when you get large estates with lots of hangers-on fighting over the spoils that things get messy, and people with that kind of money often have a business relationship with a lawyer to begin with.

The main difference is that your friendly neighborhood lawyer won't inform you that his or her own errors and oversights might also result in a will or trust that could be challenged in court.

Who is Will Kits?

Well, OF COURSE, attorneys don't want you to use kits as that is money they can make from you.

@GitEmSteveDave_@Gmail.comNeedsAWaveInvite: but according to this lawyer, you should avoid the wool kilts. I don't think I've ever gotten kilt advice from a lawyer before...

@tawni is laughing at Mostlyharmless: Everyone should get that kilt you were dreaming of. The world would be a better place.

@GitEmSteveDave_@Gmail.comNeedsAWaveInvite: I totally saw kilts.

A will may also be the wrong document. You may actually need a Trust. See a professional.

@GearheadGeek: Arguably, if were to want to buy a house, even if I attempted to educate myself extensively on the process, I'd still want a real estate agent to take a look at the stack of papers before I sign. Mostly because 10+ years of experience still trumps my 3 months of library and internet research.

"No sensible person would employ 'just anyone' to fill teeth, take out an appendix, or deliver a baby."

If somebody made teeth-filling, appendectomy and home-birth kits, I bet people would. :P

I believe a hand written will still suffices in all states...why not just write it out yourself?

No sensible person would employ just anyone to fill teeth or deliver a baby. So why wouldn't you pay a mechanic $85/hr to refill your wiper fluid?

Same argument.

@jscott73: By the way, just add beneficiaries to all your accounts and a will will simply serve to name an executor and direct them what to do with any property you may have or special bequeaths you may wish. Accounts with beneficiaries on it are not affected by your will at all.

@GearheadGeek:

You can sue your lawyer for malpractice.

If you're managing your collection of 1998 Red Sox baseball cards, you don't need a lawyer and a will. If you have property, assets, and love-ones, you should use a lawyer and have everything done properly. For anybody who's dealt with the death of a loved-one when their wills are not properly established... it sucks.

@jscott73:

I make my own wills at home!

Live in California, get a Living Trust. A will will require going through probate. Probate only benefits the lawyers involved, and will cost a decent chunk of the estate. Oh, and it's stupidly complex and takes a considerable amount of time.

@pecan 3.14159265:

I would prefer my contract lawyer look at "the stack of papers"

Even a graduate from "smaller" less prestigious law school with 10 years experience, is better qualified than a RE agent with 25+ years experience.

If you don't have a whole lot of assets and your family gets along, then having your will challenged in court probably isn't a huge concern, and I don't see a need for a professionally done will.

@pecan 3.14159265: Trusting real estate agents is what got a lot of people into the ARM/balloon/IO disasters.

@rinse: Delivering a baby was always DIY and still is in most countries. Only recently has it become more expensive than buying a car.

May I add that if you live in New York, under no circumstances should you even think about using a will and trust kit. NY has some of the most god-awful complicated inheritance laws in the country.

Yesterday you were hawking Orman's planning kit... now this?

Anyhow, it's not just a kit. Make sure you have a lawyer who practices in your locality. My grandmother got a will drawn up by a lawyer, but one who didn't know the exact legal language of her area, and the will was thrown out. Get someone with a track record for knowing what they're doing. You're paying the money to get a document the probate office won't reject.

@pecan 3.14159265: And in fact when you are BUYING a house, it's free to use a realtor because they're fleecing the people SELLING. It's a weird situation, because in most cases the buyer's agent is doing more work than the seller's agent. Trolling through the listings for reasonable matches to the buyer's wants/needs, schlepping the buyers around to various properties, etc.

It's true that listing agents with moronic customers have to tell them all sorts of stuff that should be obvious (mow the lawn, keep the house tidy, fix the broken windows and peeling paint, etc) but for the most part once that initial advice is given, the listing agent is just waiting for someone to make an offer, or acting as another buyer's agent to bring the offer themselves and score the ENTIRE commission instead of just half.

When my wife died intestate (without a will) we were in our early 30s, had no children, did not own a home, had one vehicle jointly owned but not yet paid for, and two credit cards. Her having no will affected me not one iota. Of course, we also had no money. For many people of modest means, there is simply no need for a will, or at least one drawn up in a lawyers office. When you cross certain levels of income/ownership, it probably becomes needed, but for many of us a will kit will do just fine.

@dangerp: Perhaps said lawyer attended the St Patricks day parade on a windy day. Then, said advice is well noted.

@xthexlanternx: By the time your lawyer's error is discovered, you're likely to be dead and therefore unable to sue.

@Skaperen: I think he's on the run in Florida with Bill Stickers.

We used a will and trust kit to lay out our wishes, and took it to a lawyer, who gave us a discounted rate, made sure all was correct, and filed it as a trust at the county court house. This was in Texas.

These kits can be useful, but I would not rely on them for anything complicated or critical (such as the custody of surviving dependents).

@henrygates: Well, here's hoping that my car is the first car in my family to get into college.

Oh, I see the problem with will kits. No will is complete without a "must stay in haunted mansion overnight" clause. I should have known.

Just another "please, we're losing money, stop using those less expensive services" plea from another overpriced profession.

@GitEmSteveDave_@Gmail.comNeedsAWaveInvite: I must admit that my first thought was "Who is Will Kits, and why should I care about him?"

@rickinsthelens: You also had the advantage of legally-recognized community property. Even if you'd had a reasonable amount of money it would have been a pretty smooth situation.

My partner and I are in a different situation, however. If one of us died intestate, by default the deceased's property would pass to a more-remote family member. As both of his parents and my mother are still living, they'd have the best legal standing to claim for their respective son. However, my mom has no need of our house, I want it to pass to my partner and therefore we need wills. There are no millions for relatives to squabble over or families who deny the validity of our relationship, so I'm not worried that our basic, straightforward wills would be a problem.

@dangerp: OMG!Ponies! is a lawyer, and was talking kilts the other day.

@henrygates: I don't have this inherant distrust in real estate agents cause I have one in the family, and can visit anytime and raid the fridge and talk about my finances.

Guess what, a lawyer isn't a doctor and this analogy is utterly invalid. This is more like filing your taxes yourself using TurboTax rather than going to H&R Block--just as good if not better for the overwhelming majority of people and far, far cheaper.

@GearheadGeek: So true. If you are not in a legally recognized union, the best offense is a good defense. I would be all for getting advice in a situation where that is the case. But for a poor working couple, it was really not a problem.

@Caffiend: You only go through probate if your "probate-able assets" are >$100k or you own real estate. Cars don't count towards the $100k nor do accounts that have beneficiaries.

I would argue all your accounts should have beneficiaries therefore if you don't own real estate you won't need to go through probate.

@Trencher93: They're not hawking will kits. In fact, they ask whether anyone has seen a will developed from a will kit hold up in court. This seems to be the prevailing reason for not using a will kit.

@GearheadGeek: Things often get "messy" any time there is money, and even sometimes when there's none. People are ornery and old family tensions can boil up to the surface and cause even a simple estate to get downright ugly.

My eye-glasses place said the same thing when I asked for a copy of my prescription so I could order eye glasses online.

There are some people who definitely need to see an attorney because their affairs are complex. But if the extent of your possessions is an IRA, a car, and a flat-screen TV then you probably don't need to see a lawyer to prepare a will.

A few reasons not to try writing a will by yourself:

1) It might be better to put some of your property into a trust instead of including it in your will.

2) People very commonly forget to include intellectual property. Copyrights, trademarks, patents, and any royalties you might have been receiving from them, should be included in the will (or trust). Even well-known songwriters have made the mistake of forgetting to include their songwriting royalties in their will.

3) If you want to do anything even slightly complicated, like "my house to my daughter for her lifetime, then to my niece," it's really important to have a lawyer go over the language to make sure it's legal and does what you want it to do. Some of the laws are surprisingly ancient and complicated. Google "rule against perpetuities" if you're into this sort of thing.

4) Your family situation might change before you die, and a lawyer can help write language that will still do what you want, even if something changes and you don't get to change your will. What if you left something to someone and they die before you? What if another child is born or adopted? What if you left everything to a charity, and that organization doesn't exist anymore? Will your will still make sense, or is it totally useless now?

As an attorney, I must concur. One should avoid "kits" for what seem to be routine legal papers. This goes for incorporation kits, divorce kits, adoption kits, or will kits.

And on the last point, let me say one more thing. While I am staunchly against will kits, I am staunchly in favor of wool kits. Personally, I'd love nothing more than to deliver an opening statement to a Brooklyn jury, decked out in a bespoke kilt in Jewish tartan (yes, there is a Jewish tartan), replete with the formal leggings and well-oiled shoes, with a smart grey tweed blazer and pressed white dress shirt.

Will kits, nay. Wool kits, yea. And that is my legal and sartorial advice.

Wills are like every other legal document. They can be challenged in court and picked apart even when it was presumed that they were iron-clad.

See also: pre-nuptial agreement.

@GearheadGeek: People say the same thing about buying cars. "All I have to do is educate myself a little bit and I'll be fine." Fact is, car salesmen -- who sell and buy cars 8-12 hours a day 5-7 days a week -- will destroy all but the most experienced buyer... that's 98% of us.

In the same way, spending a couple hundred dollars for a /professional/ to look over your estate plan is well worth it. They may know about new laws you don't know about, they might catch some "internet wisdom" you picked up that's going to screw your heirs... what's the downside?

My POV is this: I do the things at which I'm a professional, and pay the pros to do those things that I'm not. IMO, it works out better for everyone.

One more thing -- my father wrote his own holographic will ([en.wikipedia.org]) without the use of a kit of any kind. It was sufficient for me to handle his estate which included:

* 25% ownership of a small business
* 50% ownership of his house
* 50% ownership of a cabin
* numerous brokerage and IRA accounts
* several life insurance policies
* instructions for creation of trust accounts

The will was about 2 pages handwritten. The trick is to keep your instructions simple. Don't try to justify your instructions, just list them out. If you really want, then add another letter that explains why you're doing what you're doing. But the will should be simple and straightforward.