A Legal MinutePreventing disputes
Document Preparers and Estate Risks
The short answer
According to the speaker, such problems usually surface only after death because they're concealed. Document preparers aren't attorneys and shouldn't give legal advice. In her experience, they don't really assess capacity or ask a law office's questions, like who arranged the appointment and who wants to be in the room, a loophole she's seen exploited.
From the full episode Common Probate Litigation Issues in Arizona (20:11).
Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Transcript
A lot of the times the stuff is absolutely discovered after somebody's passed away. Very rarely is it discovered previously, because it's being concealed. And a big contributor to this being successful is document preparers, which are not attorneys. They are licensed by the state of Arizona through a kind of civil division through the Supreme Court, but they do not have bar numbers. They are not supposed to give legal advice, but I have found that they are usually the ones behind these amended documents.
Because, as I mentioned for the first question, attorneys evaluate capacity. Who's the person calling the firm to make the appointment? Who's bringing them? Who's trying to be in the room with them? Who are you? Why is the family member not here? There's just some things that a law office will look at and pick up on.
And unfortunately, document preparers, being unable to give legal advice, you basically tell them, "Write this down." And they say, "Okay." They don't really make capacity determinations. They don't ask questions, because typically that involves legal advice. So it's unfortunately kind of a loophole that I've seen be exploited.
Information on this website is general in nature and is not legal advice. Viewing this website or contacting the firm does not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results and client experiences do not guarantee a similar outcome.
