Or: Why doing an online Will may not work for you.
Had a client come in with his deceased brother's Will, and there is property that needs to be probated.
The brother decided to save some money, not hire an attorney, and do it himself online.
He certainly had the right to do so.
But he lacked the ability to do it right.
He saved money, at least initially, but created a major headache and expense for his survivors.
The problem is he manged to name himself as Personal Representative (think Executor if your jurisdiction uses that term instead, its the person responsible for running the estate through the probate process) of his Will.
Once you have shuffled off your mortal coil, you can't be personal representative of anything, much less your own Will and estate. It doth not work that way.
I don't know if the online tool he used glitched, or if he didn't understand what he was doing and filled it out wrong, or what. But we now have a problem as a result.
But as a result, we have to do a lot of stuff that would otherwise be unnecessary and more costly than if it had been done right from the start.
We now must do a formal probate process complete with a hearing before a judge rather, than the less expensive informal process, to get someone else appointed as the Personal Representative and allow the estate to get moving in probate.
Sometimes it makes sense to have a professional do things, and it can save a lot of time and money too.
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