To many people, the prospect of hiring their own attorney to develop an estate plan brings one key issue to mind: costs. As an alternative, these people often use do-it-yourself estate planning guidance to hopefully save some money. Though there are a lot of good guides available, the money you save when making a plan on your own can quickly get eaten up by the mistakes the DIY process often involves. Here are some of the more common problems.
Do-it-yourself plans are not tailor-made
If a publisher wants to make money it cannot create a guide that will only appeal to a handful of people. Instead, it has to make a guide that will appeal to as broad a base as possible. While this is good from a publishing perspective, it is not good if you are using these guides to make your own plan. Your situation may require individually tailored advice that a guide is not able to give you.
Laws change
Every year there are host of new laws and regulations that can impact your estate plan. Even if the guide you purchased was published recently, there will always be a delay between when it is written and when it is published. During that time the law could have changed significantly. An estate planning lawyer will always be up-to-date on the most recent changes in the law, wallet do-it-yourself guide will not be.
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