Creating a Will is a crucial step in ensuring your loved ones are taken care of after you’re gone. Regardless of whether you have a Trust or Will based estate plan, your Will is an essential piece of any estate plan. In your Will, you’ll appoint guardians for minor children, while also ensuring that you opt out of your state government’s default plan and designate who should receive your property (even if your property will pour into a Trust). With the rise of online platforms and catchy commercials promising fast and affordable solutions, you might wonder whether you can skip the lawyer altogether.
While it’s true that online will services can work for some people, they aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. In many cases, these DIY tools can create more problems than they solve. Before deciding to draft your Will online, ask yourself these important questions to determine whether professional guidance is the better option to protect your family.
Is Keeping Your Family Out of Court a Priority?
If your primary goal is for your family to avoid the stress and cost of hiring an attorney and going to court when something happens to you, then relying solely on an online Will is unlikely to achieve your goal. In fact, the opposite is true – it guarantees that your family will be required to go through probate at an already emotional and difficult time in their life, when all they want to do is focus on their family and grieve.
We’ve previously addressed a few common myths and misunderstandings of the general public surrounding Wills in a prior article, Why “Just a Will” Is Never Enough. In that article, we explained that “a will is simply a set of instructions for the court to follow—it doesn’t keep your estate out of probate… If you use only a Will as your main method of estate planning, you guarantee that your loved ones will go to court after you die because a Will is required by law to go through the court system called probate before any of your assets can be distributed. In fact, a Will is only effective by going through the probate court.”
During the probate process, the court validates your Will, oversees the payment of any debts or taxes, and distributes your assets to your beneficiaries. This process can be time-consuming, expensive, and the entire process plays out in the public record for anyone to see, which might be the opposite of what you want for your loved ones.
To truly avoid probate, your Will must work alongside additional tools like a revocable living trust, up-to-date and strategic beneficiary designations, and proper financial and tax planning. These elements are rarely addressed in online will platforms, leaving your family vulnerable to court involvement and losing out on benefits you could have taken advantage of.
To be clear, you can also prepare your Trust and a Will online. Our experience in reviewing online DIY Trusts after people get frustrated and want some guidance, is that most people don’t understand their options, what selections they need to make based on their circumstances, and what they need to do after their Trust is signed to properly implement their plan. In the end, most people who create a Trust-based estate plan online do not properly “fund” their Trust, which results in their family ending up in court anyway.
Does Your Online Will Comply With State Law?
Each state has its own legal requirements for creating a valid Will. These rules dictate how the document must be signed, witnessed, and executed. For example, some states require documents to be notarized, others require you to sign in the presence of either one or two witnesses, while others may have additional conditions.
If your online Will doesn’t meet these requirements, or you don’t fill out and sign the documents correctly, your Will can be declared invalid. If your family has to face this harsh reality, your efforts to create a Will were then all done in vain the very thing you were trying to avoid will become your family’s reality. If that happens, your estate will be distributed according to state intestacy laws, which often prioritize your closest relative(s) over your personal wishes.
To ensure compliance and that your documents are signed correctly, you must review your state’s legal standards for Wills. The requirements for Illinois can be found in 755 ILCS 5/4-3.
Who Will Serve as Your Executor, and Are They Fully Prepared?
Naming the right executor — or personal representative — is a critical decision in your estate plan. This individual will be responsible for collecting and managing your assets, paying your debts, and distributing your property to beneficiaries.
If your Will doesn’t properly name an executor or fails to waive certain requirements, such as obtaining a bond, the court might appoint someone on your behalf. This can lead to delays, disputes, unnecessary expenses, and it may even result in the appointment of someone you wouldn’t have chosen.
Online tools often fail to provide detailed guidance for naming executors and backups, which increases the risk of court involvement. Professional help ensures your executor is properly qualified and supported to carry out your wishes. In addition, an experienced professional can help you understand the duties required, the time commitment, and discuss your family dynamics with you to assist in making the best decision for your family.
My family is going through this right now and let me tell you, it’s not an easy task. It is a LOT of work to wind down someone’s estate and to attend to their affairs after they are gone. Thankfully, my family member had a Trust in place (you are welcome family), but even if you have everything taken care of and can avoid the court process of probate, it is still quite the undertaking and a full-time job to take care of all of the small odds and ends that must be addressed after someone has passed.
Why Professional Guidance Is Often Worth It
If you’re wondering whether you can create your Will online, start by asking this: Do I want to protect my family from unnecessary stress, court battles, delay, and financial burden? If the answer is yes, you’ll likely need more than what a DIY service can offer.
While online tools may cover the basics, they rarely account for the complexities of family dynamics, unique asset structures, or changing laws. A lawyer can provide tailored advice, ensuring your estate plan is comprehensive, personalized, and legally sound, so that it will work in the way that you want when your family needs it most.
More importantly, “we don’t know, what we don’t know.” This area of the law is complicated and even attorneys who don’t specialize in probate, trusts and estates, have a difficult time wrapping their head around the complexities of estate planning. So, after having reviewed many DIY online estate plans, I can assure you that my clients who have come in to have their online documents reviewed were unsure that they had done things correctly, that the documents were signed in the right way, and they didn’t understand the complicated legal jargon in the documents that were generated. The peace of mind of knowing that your estate plan was done correctly, complies with your state law, and will actually work for your family when you need them to, is worth something in and of itself.
We always like to say that when you work with our office, the legal documents are merely a byproduct of our relationship. What is truly important is that your family achieves the outcomes and goals that are important to you. Let a professional do the worrying for you and analyze the legal documents and microscopic details, while you are merely directing us on the outcome that you want for your family. Like anything in life, you hire an expert to achieve a result and for the peace of mind of knowing that the job was done correctly.
Next Steps
If you’re considering an online Will, but want to ensure your family is fully protected, start by educating yourself. For personalized support, reach out to us. Our Family, Wealth & Legacy Planning Process is designed to help you create an estate plan that fits your unique needs and goals. This process starts with a no-commitment, two-hour “Educational Strategy Session,” where we will examine and discuss your goals, finances, family dynamics, and examine what would happen to your family, wealth and legacy under your current plan, or lack thereof, and what all your planning options are. At the conclusion of that meeting, you can decide whether you want to work with our office, or whether you want to proceed with a DIY online Will plan after getting a better understanding of all your options. So, regardless of where you get your plan done, our advice is to educate yourself on what’s out there, and whatever you do, please don’t leave your family’s future to chance — contact us today to get started.
This article is a service of Family Wealth & Legacy Legal Solutions (FWLLS). At FWLLS, we do not just draft documents; we ensure you make educated, informed and empowered decisions for yourself and the people you love. That’s why we offer a Family Wealth & Legacy Strategy Session™, during which you will get educated and begin to prepare to avoid life’s most common legal problems and get a plan in place to make the best possible choices for the people you love. You can begin by calling our office today to schedule a Family Wealth & Legacy Strategy Session and mention this article to find out how to get this $900 session at a significantly discounted rate, or even for free.