A Legal MinutePreventing disputes
Why DIY and Document Preparers Often Cause Legal Trouble
The short answer
Carly Whiteside says non-attorney document preparers can't give legal advice. Asked what to put in a will or trust, they may ask what you want; an attorney may warn against a provision likely to start a fight. Much trust and will litigation she sees involves their documents. Handwritten or partial planning tends to cause issues.
From the full episode Avoiding Probate Litigation: Practical Strategies for Families in Arizona (19:59).
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Transcript
Get your trust done professionally. Please do not use a document preparer. I know they are a lot cheaper. They are not attorneys. Most of my litigation with trusts are doc prep trusts and wills, because they're wrong.
Doc preparers cannot give you legal advice. So if you ask them, "Should I put this in my will or trust?" they go, "What do you want to do?" An attorney will say, "Absolutely not. Are you trying to create a fight? We're not doing that."
So, please do that or do nothing and let the Arizona laws take over, because when we have handwritten things and kind of the in-between, again, that's where we see issues.
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