With the start of a new year just behind us, many people have been taking the time to reflect on the past year and re-prioritize their objectives as they head into 2016. For many of us, we have a goal of kicking off the new year with renewed vigor and a clear mission. We make lists and think of personal habits and business changes we want to make.

But, it’s also important to make sure your own affairs are in order. One important item to add to your 2016 list should be getting an estate plan checkup.

Everyone has an estate, and every estate needs a plan. Whether you consider yourself rich or poor, when you die you will leave behind assets. Your estate might include cash and investments, real estate, tangible personal property, or even an interest in a business.

At its most basic level, an estate plan determines how your assets will be distributed to those you leave behind when you pass away. Because of the ever-changing nature of tax laws, financial markets and the economy, an estate plan checkup is an important activity to revisit. Even if you already have an estate plan, it is imperative that you revisit that plan in order to ensure that it remains relevant under your current family and financial circumstances.

Just like an annual visit to your physician, a periodic review of your estate plan can either reinforce the fact that all is well and in order, or it can uncover the need for additional attention to return your plan to a healthy state. Keeping a keen eye on your plan will go a long way in avoiding disputes between your loved ones, as well as managing the amount of your hard-earned dollars that must go to cover federal and state estate taxes.
No matter what your net worth, a basic estate plan should include a valid will, durable power-of-attorney, health care power-of-attorney, and a living will. Some situations might also make it desirable to use a trust or series of trusts to accomplish your goals.

An estate plan check-up involves a review of the terms of all of these documents, with a particular focus on determining whether the persons you named to act in your absence remain appropriate, and whether the plan for distribution of your assets is still what you desire.

In addition to the implementation or review of your documents, your estate plan check-up should look at related issues such as the desirability of life insurance, disability insurance, or long-term care insurance, as well as the ongoing impact of pre-nuptial agreements or any other documents that affect your assets.

Estate planning is not a static event that you grudgingly do once and then forget about it. On the contrary, estate planning is a continuing process, because life is a moving target that is full of constant change, so your estate plan needs to change as your life changes. A periodic checkup will insure that all is healthy as you move into the future.

Online legal document services offer an enticing bargain. Most people realize that they need an estate plan to manage their affairs if something happens to them. And, let’s face it, estate planning attorneys are expensive.

That’s why many consumers are now questioning whether it’s possible to skip the attorney fees and use a low-cost website to prepare estate planning documents. The short answer is that, yes, it is possible. But, it’s not recommended. You could save a few bucks now, but end up creating an expensive and frustrating mess for your family.

Unfortunately, most people don’t realize what they are getting themselves into with an online document service. That’s because the online services have spent millions trying to create the impression that their services are similar to those of an attorney. They put lawyers in their commercials, hire celebrities to promote them, and even tout stories of people who have successfully used their documents.

But, all the marketing in the world can’t erase the simple truth. The online services aren’t law firms. They aren’t lawyers. They can’t give legal advice. Instead, they are “document assistants” – a term that states use to define service providers who type your information into generic form documents.

In other words, a document assistant is like a mindless typing zombie who enters your information into a form, whether or not it makes sense and whether or not it is a good idea. If you are stuck, they can’t help you. If you make a huge mistake, they can’t warn you.

It would be a crime for them to warn you. It doesn’t matter if the guy working on your documents is an estate planning genius. He’s simply not allowed to give legal advice. Think of it this way. A person needs a law license in order to give legal advice, just the same way that a doctor needs a license to write a prescription. Giving legal advice without a license is very much like selling drugs without a prescription. It’s a crime.

So, these companies design their generic forms so that, even without legal advice, it’s hard to make mistakes. That may seem like a good thing. But, it turns out that the best way to make sure that your documents don’t do anything wrong is to make sure they don’t do anything at all. They’re just do-nothing, one-size-fits-all generic documents.

That leads to the next problem with the online services. They can’t even promise you that the documents will work. Again, they can’t. They aren’t attorneys, which means they can’t promise a particular legal result.

Many clients are excited to learn that they can leave assets to a special needs child without jeopardizing government benefits; or, that they can protect a child’s inheritance from frivolous lawsuits, divorce or bankruptcy. A well-designed estate plan makes sure that your resources get where you want them and that they are used in the way you instruct. It’s about creating legally-enforceable provisions that do what you want done.

And, the online document services can’t promise any of that. They can’t promise you’ll achieve your goals. They can’t point out opportunities, and they can’t warn you about hidden hazards. Really, all they can do is save you a few bucks.

But, they play a clever price game, too. Most of the online services compare their prices to what an attorney would charge for similar documents. But, their comparisons are misleading in two ways. First, they compare the price they charge for a single document to the price that an attorney charges for an entire estate plan, which includes numerous documents.

More importantly, though, there is no way to compare the prices, because they aren’t even offering the same thing that you would get from an attorney. If a fast food restaurant told you that you could order their $1.79 “salad in a box” instead of paying twenty dollars for a fancy restaurant salad bar, you’d instantly recognize the faulty comparison. A wilted clump of lettuce in a plastic clamshell isn’t anything like an all-you-can-eat salad bar with every conceivable ingredient, made fresh and eaten in a nice environment with an attentive wait staff.

But, that’s because most people have experience with restaurants – both good and bad. They know how to judge quality, and they understand the “you get what you pay for” concept. But, when it comes to legal planning, most people don’t have the experience to know better. You only get to use an estate plan once. And, if you screw it up, you’ll never know. But, your family will know. If your estate plan doesn’t work properly, your family could end up paying the price and cleaning up the mess after you’re gone.
Your estate plan is the box that carries your entire life savings. It’s just not worth the risk of damaging your life’s work just to save a few bucks.

People who are normally kind and in tune with their emotions revert to fighting children, figuratively, sometimes literally, scratching, punching, and pulling each other’s hair. Even where there is no obvious conflict, it seems that nearly every family has some amount of tension permeating just beneath the surface as they address family inheritance issues.

Stories of families in conflict at the death of a loved one are regular fodder in the media. It is easy to mock them; they look ridiculous, and it all seems so petty. We wonder why people just can’t get along. But, after some study I have learned that what appears as greed and pettiness are really symptoms of survivors’ struggle to feel loved and important. The fight for money and things – Dad’s golf clubs, Mom’s necklace – is not about the object or the money itself, but about what they symbolize: importance, love, security, self-esteem, connectedness, and immortality.

The old saying that “money makes people do funny things” doesn’t do justice to the real problems and root causes of family conflict. Money is not the core reason that fami¬lies fight; money is how we keep score in the fight for the intangibles of love, approval, and primordial survival. Money and possessions also help allay the fears of those left behind. When families fight, greed is rarely the principal motive.

The feuding family members can always trace their problems back several years, if not all the way back to childhood. For some, the trouble starts with the involvement of non-family. It is clear that inheritance conflict doesn’t come out of the blue; it is a continuation of long-term relationship problems that resurface upon the illness or death of a loved one. And they aren’t just about money or greed; they are about more, much more. But what is it that so often drives people to wage war against their own flesh and blood over a loved one’s estate?

There are five basic reasons why families fight in matters of inheritance:

1. Humans are genetically predisposed to competition and conflict.
2. Our psychological sense of self is intertwined with the approval that an inheritance represents, especially when the decedent is a parent.
3. We are genetically hardwired to be on the lookout for exclusion, sometimes finding it when it doesn’t exist.
4. Families fight because the death of a loved one activates the death anxieties of those left behind.
5. One or more members of a family has a partial or full-blown personality disorder that causes them to distort and escalate natural family rivalries into personal and legal battles.

These sources of family conflict are not mutually exclusive; in most cases, some combination of the five elements present themselves in a combustible cocktail of family rivalry and conflict.

A significant number of inheritance disputes also involve testators and beneficiaries who come from dysfunctional families, are mentally ill or addicted, or suffer from one or more of the four Cluster B personality disorders as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV): antisocial, borderline, histrionic, or narcissistic.

Despite the tensions and rivalries that naturally exist in all families, family conflict is not inevitable. As family coun¬selors we can help families overcome the natural tensions that tend to pull them apart in order to preserve their most valuable asset: family itself. We can counsel our clients on the pitfalls of various courses of action, dissuade them from provisions that are punitive, encourage them to mend fences while family members are still alive, and promote planning that leaves a legacy of love.

More than just scriveners, clients look to their estate plan¬ning counsel to advise them on what is fair and customary. We use our legal and personal skills to document their wishes while being sensitive to the needs of those left behind. Special care must be taken to not upset long-held roles when allocating personal and financial assets and in appointing fiduciaries. We can also protect our clients from predators from within the family and without who are most likely to manipulate and abuse. In short, we can make a difference. Our clients are also good teachers, instructing us on the importance of family, the transience of money and things, and the shortness of life.