| Periodic Review of Estate Planning Documents |
Should You Have Your Estate Plan Documents Periodically Reviewed?
The answer to this question should be obvious. If you have been wise enough to develop an estate plan, hopefully you are also wise enough to see that it only makes sense to have it reviewed once in a while to make sure it still meets your objectives.
There are may reasons even the best estate plan may need to be changed; family circumstances change, Family members are born, die, marry and divorce. The size of your estate may change in a way that the original plan can no longer afford you maximum protection from Federal Estate Taxes. Usually the changes that happen in our lives seem to happen slowly and often times when I review client's estate plan documents, they are quite surprised about the distribution, or other terms of their estate plan. Sometimes an executor or trustee that was willing and able to act when the documents were originally written now has become unwilling or unable to serve in that capacity. After someone dies, it is not a good thing to find out that Uncle Louie and Aunt Gwen who were designated as your first and second successors are now living in Australia and are 94 years old! After all, you paid to have an estate plan, why not keep it in perfect order and completely effective.
The other reason for having your estate plan documents reviewed is that the laws constantly change. With each New Year, there are new laws passed by the State of California and the Federal Government that may have an impact upon the effectiveness of your estate plan. Why put your heirs in the position of saying, "if only...."
WHO SHOULD REVIEW YOUR ESTATE PLAN
Let me offer you a clue in this...not your investment advisor or your insurance man or your barber or anyone else that is not a licensed attorney! (If for no other reason, see the section on Confidentiality)
OK, the answer to the question is to have your estate plan reviewed either by the attorney that originally drafted the documents or another California licensed attorney that is knowledgeable in the area of estate planning.
Not all lawyers know the area of estate planning. In fact, I have written estate plans for numerous lawyers that know enough about the subject to know they should not do it themselves. You just want to be sure to have a lawyer that is knowledgeable in this area of law.
If your documents were not drafted by an attorney then you especially should have them reviewed by an attorney, not only to determine if they meet your current objective and comply with the current estate planning laws, but also to see if they ever did!
Great Free Offer...
Back in 1983, I made a special offer, for the month of November. I was willing to review estate planning documents, and give my legal opinion as to their validity, at no charge.
There was a marketing angle to that offer. I was still pretty new as a lawyer, I figured for the people whose estate plans I gave a clean bill of health, they would be happy to hear that, and maybe in the future, when they did need to make changes, just maybe they would think of me.
As far as the documents that had flaws or needed changes, my hope was that they would hire me to make those changes. But the offer was genuinely to do the review for free and if they did not want to make changes, or wanted someone else to do it for them, at least they would know the truth about the condition of their estate plan.
Once I started doing estate plan reviews, some that I looked over were great. They were well written, current on the law and met the client's objectives. I was very happy to report that favorable condition to my clients.
At the same time there were quite a few others that either wanted to make small changes to update their estate plan to meet their current objectives or had what I have grown to call a "Fatal Flaw.” That is, containing or lacking some provision or provisions that either would cause them to be held invalid or would cause a result far from the client's stated intentions. Having estate planning documents with a Fatal Flaw is like having a life preserver that does not float. It's only when you need it that you find out that it does not work.
The third category was documents that had been sold by "trust mills" that were nothing more than a notebook full of complex looking documents that were so badly written that the were either invalid or totally ineffective. I even found some documents that had other people's names on them! Those must have been the failure of someone preparing them and using "Find and Replace" that missed some names. Needless to say, those clients were quite surprised to learn of that!
Well, after that month of November, way back when, I realized that the need for this service is an ongoing one, so I have continued it on to this day.
SO HERE IS MY (FREE) OFFER...
If you have estate planning documents, whether the were drafted by me, some other lawyer, or anyone else, my offer stands to review them for you absolutely for free...no charge...gratis. No cost or obligation. If they are good, I will tell you so and send you on your way, at no charge.
If your documents need to be updated, I will give you a free, no cost, or obligation, binding price quote as to the cost of the changes.
If your documents have a "Fatal Flaw," I will tell you what it is and why it is a problem. From that point, you can decide what to do, if anything. If I determine that you have been victimized by a trust scam company, I will offer to re-draft your estate plan at the very lowest possible cost.
In any of the situations though, there is no cost or obligation for the review and opinion.
If you would like to take advantage of this FREE OFFER, please call me at 858-275-4992. That number is a voice mail that will take your message and send it to me by email wherever I am at the time. Either I, or my legal assistant, Naomi, will return your call promptly and we can set up an appointment to review your documents. In the alternative, you can e-mail me at Don@estate-plan.org, give me your contact information and we will contact you promptly to set up a mutually convenient appointment.
Oh, and by the way...did I mention, it is at no cost or obligation?
|
|