I need a revocable living trust. Local attorneys want $3750 to set up one. This seems high for what should be a small amount of paperwork. LegalZoom will do it for $449 for a couple.
When I Googled for reviews, I found a lot of lawyers saying that LegalZoom does not adequately handle anything complex and you will not discover the reason for having a lawyer do it until you are dead (when you might not care but the heirs will).
Other lawyers admitted that while complex cases need a lawyer, simple ones (no previous marriages, no minor children, no corporations, no bequests outside children, all property in one state) probably do not.
So, the questions:
1. Have you used LegalZoom to prepare legal documents of any kind?
2. If a situation came up where those documents came into play, did they do what was needed.
3. Especially have you or someone you know had LegalZoom create a revocable living trust without troubles later?
I have not done a revokable trust. I was the executor of my parent's wills, and when my dad passed, I hired a lawyer. I learned that for that, it was a necessity.
ReplyDeleteI had not done anything upon the death of my mother, and she had the house of her mom and dad in her name, so when my dad passed away, it was not in his name, something that my lawyer helped me with. Just little things like that.
As far as simple things, I would definitely try to use a much cheaper option. The legal fees alone were quite expensive. The retainer was 500$, I have 4 siblings, and asked them to each kick in 100$ apiece. I could not even get all of them to do that. So you can imagine just how it went from their. My parents owed more on their home than it was able to be sold for, so I had to keep renting it out, until I had it paid down.
I wish you the best of luck, and hope that you get some helpful advice from someone with experience with legalzoom.
Convince yourself that you do not need a trust. Why set one up? Avoid probate? No real reason.
ReplyDeleteMy son-in-law is laboriously suffering probate on his father's estate. That is why.
DeleteNolo Press probably has a book about it; if nothing else, you could check what LegalZoom offers against what Nolo has. Unfortunately, Nolo is not likely to have much about any Idaho-specific issues.
ReplyDelete