Draft a will with legalzoom or other online legal help

Non-investing personal finance issues including insurance, credit, real estate, taxes, employment and legal issues such as trusts and wills.
bsteiner
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Location: NYC/NJ/FL

Re: Draft a will with legalzoom or other online legal help

Post by bsteiner »

Amy2017 wrote: Fri Aug 10, 2018 10:19 am I went to the group workshop given by another attorney yesterday. ...

One of the topics she emphasized a lot is Medicaid Planning for nursing home payment. ... She also mentioned the importance of LTC insurance, which we don’t carry at this time and are not sure whether we should buy one. ... At the end of workshop, we were given an evaluation paper. One of the questions is how much is your net worth? I am surprised that the highest bracket you could choose is $900K. So I assume this attorney has more experience with smaller assets. The attorney only lists the price of her estate planning maintenance program....
Her focus on Medicaid probably made sense if she deals with people of modest means. They're usually more concerned about Medicaid than estate planning.

I'm not aware of any long-term care insurance. Most of what's called long-term care insurance is short-term care insurance, covering the first few years. I think a policy that covers expenses for life, but not for the first few years, would make more sense.

I don't like the idea of estate maintenance programs. Most people don't need to review their planning every year. Those who do are worth far more than $900,000.
Tamahome
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Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 12:03 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA

Re: Draft a will with legalzoom or other online legal help

Post by Tamahome »

Yankuba wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2017 4:10 pm. I was only charged $1500 for the the real estate closings which I imagine require more hours of labor than plugging a few names into a document
This great misconception shows exactly why in your situation it would be best to get an attorney to draft the documents. Not to be critical, but this shows a great lack of understanding of the bredth of work encompassed in estate planning. Unfortunately, that means you will likely not understand the issues well enough to know which issues need addressing or even that there are issues there.
I'm not a financial professional. Post is info only & not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship exists with reader. Scrutinize my ideas as if you spoke with a guy at a bar. I may be wrong.
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JustHappen
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Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:02 pm

Re: Draft a will with legalzoom or other online legal help

Post by JustHappen »

Went to the estate attorney’s office yesterday signing the engagement letter. The letter did specify that we authorize them to create a conduit trust for children regarding those Roth IRA/401K retirement accounts, etc. So this may answer some of your questions earlier. Although we need change the beneficiary designation for those accounts later, the beneficiary for 529 Plan will be kept unchanged. Somehow 529 Plan is a special asset that belongs to neither parents nor children. Since we plan to fund 529 Plan significantly in the future, I have asked him this several time.

I also asked his opinion of LTC insurance. He said both his wife and he has tried to buy LTC insurance in the past. He got rejected due to his back problem, but his wife got accepted. To my surprise, he said the LTC insurance his wife bought is covered for life, not just for the first several years. He said lots of LTC insurance companies disappeared these days because of the risk miscalculation, only 5 big ones still left on the market. But I forgot to ask him the name of LTC insurance company.
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FIREchief
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Re: Draft a will with legalzoom or other online legal help

Post by FIREchief »

Amy2017 wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 1:01 pm Went to the estate attorney’s office yesterday signing the engagement letter. The letter did specify that we authorize them to create a conduit trust for children regarding those Roth IRA/401K retirement accounts, etc. So this may answer some of your questions earlier.
I'm curious why you didn't heed the advice of several of us to go with an accumulation trust instead of a conduit trust. Did you have a good reason for this?
I am not a lawyer, accountant or financial advisor. Any advice or suggestions that I may provide shall be considered for entertainment purposes only.
Topic Author
JustHappen
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Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:02 pm

Re: Draft a will with legalzoom or other online legal help

Post by JustHappen »

I totally forgot to ask him about accumulation trust during the meeting. However, after I learn more about these two trusts, I still prefer conduit trust over accumulation trust. There are several reasons. Our kids are minors. If they happen to receive the inherited IRA while still minors, the RMD should be minimal based on their ages. Since they will not have any income of their own at that age, they do need this RMD income and much more for their expense. So conduit trust will be a better choice without unnecessary complexity in this situation. We will definitely update our wills once they reach 18 years old. We could reevaluate our choices at that time. Nevertheless, I emailed the attorney the question. Here is his response. I am not sure I fully understand what he said, but I will take his conclusion.

"As for utilizing conduit trust planning or accumulation trust planning, I agree with you that conduit trust planning is normally the superior option, as it is in your case. We limit the accumulation trust planning for special situations since it requires a limit on the possible beneficiaries after your child's death, as well as additional administrative burdens since these assets will be more limited in who can benefit than the other trust assets."


One thing good about his attorney is that he responds your email pretty quickly. He seems working very hard. I sometimes got his email before 7am and after 8pm. I also think it is a very good thing for him to take several months to prepare the draft since it gives his clients enough time to educate themselves before making the final decision.
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