DIY Wills Don't: Do It Yourself Wills Not Always a Good Idea

By Ameer Shaikh 

Americans are the masters of do-it-yourself. It's why places like Home Depot and IKEA exist. Heck, even the first airplane flight was a DIY project for the Wright brothers.

And in the legal arena, Americans do a lot of things on a DIY basis. This includes real estate, fighting traffic violations, small claims court, sometimes divorces, and even going starting the administrative process of filing employment discrimination complaints. And, of course, people write their own wills all the time.

However, perhaps that DIY attitude should be checked a little when it comes to disposing of your estate.

The greatest problem with a do-it-yourself-will is that the creator won't be fully aware of potential problems until it is too late, notes FindLaw's KnowledgeBase. Unlike in other legal actions, with a will you're not going to be around to fix misunderstandings, so you really should be a hundred percent confident about what you're doing.

A number of the more complex problems in a do-it-yourself-will include the following:

A will has to be completely unambiguous. Ambiguity is diminished through clear and concise use of language of the sort that lawyers are trained to write.

The provisions of a will depending on changing regulations and laws. For example, the estate tax rate keeps changing from one period to another. Keeping up with this may be difficult for an average person.

Assets and estates change in value because of the economy and other valuations issues.

To be valid and enforceable, a will has to comply with numerous formalities enshrined in the laws of a particular state. Property law is the culmination of hundreds of years of disputes and arguments worked out in the state's case law. It can become difficult tracking every case down.

And the best part of all, in New York, a will execution that is supervised by an attorney is considered to be done according to the formalities of the law. So using a lawyer provides a kind of automatic stamp-of-approval.

Do-it-yourself-will problems can create hurdles for even the most grizzled, street-smart people. If you're going to do it yourself, check the resources at FindLaw. But, otherwise, please speak to an attorney.

For more information on these matters, please call our office at 305 548 5020. 

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