What should you look for when hiring an estate planning attorney
‘What to look for when hiring an estate planning attorney’ is the question of the day!
Most people want to do an estate plan with the main purpose of avoiding probate. This is because of the cost, expense and delay of a probate process. They will hire an attorney to avoid probate to make it more efficient to transfer their assets.
Here are some basic questions you might want to ask an estate planning attorney:
- Is your primary focus estate planning or do you offer other services?
- Is estate planning just something you do once in a while or your main focus?
- How long have you been practicing?
- Do you actually execute the plan like transferring title over to documents?
- Do you conduct periodic reviews of the estate plan for changes in the person’s life events?
- What is your estate tax experience, income tax experience and real property tax experience?
- Can you help create a comprehensive estate plan?
- How much do you charge and is it a flat rate or hourly or some kind of combination?
- Do you have an estate planning organizer to gather all the necessary information?
- How long does it take to complete the estate plan?
In our office, the term “comprehensive estate plan” refers to several documents that we prepare as a package.
Comprehensive Estate Planning documents include:
A revocable trust and a pour over will. The trust is generally for people who have real property and significant assets. A will can be prepared for someone who has very little assets but normally it’s included and we call it a pour over will to move everything to the trust. The next documents are a durable power of attorney for asset management and an advanced healthcare directive. We do an assignment of personal property to your trust and we actually take and create the deeds, notarize and record them in the county.
Why use an estate planning organizer?
An estate planning organizer is used to gather the information about your beneficiaries, successor trustees, executors, special assets you want transferred and what you envisioned your estate plan wishes to effectuate in writing.
Getting an idea of how long it takes to create an estate plan is always a good idea!
Our office generally gets a first draft for the client to read within three weeks.
Another thing to consider when you’re talking with an estate planning attorney on the phone or over zoom is how comfortable you feel with the person.
Do you feel that they can communicate clearly or do they talk over your head? Do you feel that you have reasonably good rapport and can you envision yourself talking to this person about very personal type items? It is important that you feel comfortable and confident in the attorney you are considering hiring.
What will happen during an initial meeting with the estate planning attorney?
Our office offers new clients a free 20-minute telephone, zoom or office appointment for no charge.
This gives us the opportunity to go over what your assets are briefly and get an overall idea for your plan and what you envision. In our experience we have found that’s a good way to get the ball rolling and if at the end of the 20 minutes you don’t want to go ahead, no problem you don’t have to.
Another common question is “what if I want to make changes later to my estate plan?”
If you want or need to make any changes to your estate planning that would be an amendment to a trust and we provide that service. Oftentimes we will take someone who has a very old trust and bring it up to date with all the current laws.
Another good question we recommend asking the estate planning attorney is when do you anticipate retiring?
We’ve had several clients that have come here because their attorneys retired and are no longer around providing services. That happens, and my view is that I’m not going to retire forever so I plan on being in practice for the next 20 years.
Experience related questions to ask a potential estate planning attorney:
- Do they have estate and inheritance tax experience?
- Do they have trust and estate income tax experience?
- Do they have real estate taxation experience which is a very large issue in the state of California?
If the firm says “oh we don’t do any tax at all. We do the plan and we push the tax issues off to some other firm.” The problem with that is if the firm doesn’t do tax then they can’t draft it into the documents. A lot of what we do since I’m also a CPA and Enrolled Agent CTEC tax person is we package up the legal issues and the tax issues to be resolved at the same time.
Are attorneys the only ones who can provide estate planning services?
Obviously attorneys can, but there is another group of people who can prepare legal documents (LDA) for estate planning. An LDA or legal document assistant is a paralegal type license in the state of California. It is important to note that they’re not supervised by attorneys.
Another provider for estate planning services are the online template type services where you get a plan by answering some questions on the internet. I look at those as cheap services or one size fits all and I can’t imagine that you get the kind of service needed. I mean you’re entrusting your entire life savings and your family’s financial future on a vending machine type of program. With the online services I liken it to you would you shop at a store that had one size fits all clothing? Obviously not, because everyone is different. Some of them that I’ve seen don’t include current and up-to-date information. There’s often questions that are unanswered and missing important things that don’t materialize for five or ten years so there’s many issues that might not be included in that type of plan.
To summarize here is what we recommend you want to look for when hiring an estate planning attorney.
- You want a person who’s experienced and has good communication skills
- You want someone who doesn’t talk over your head
- You want to have the ability to avoid probate
- You want someone who has the state tax experience, income tax experience and California real estate tax experience
- You also want an estate planning firm who does postmortem estate administration. This is what happens after someone dies. You have to handle their transfer of assets according to their wishes to their beneficiaries and you really want to make sure that the estate planning attorney transfers the title to your property with the county recorder so that it is actually owned in the name of the trust so it avoids probate.
- You also want someone who has experience and trust in probate court litigation and probate administration
Hopefully this overview of things to consider when you’re hiring an estate planning attorney has been helpful!
Feel free to contact us by telephone at 925-934-6320 or email for an initial consultation.
We offer free 20-minute consultations over the phone, zoom or in-office appointments.
Keep in mind that your entire life savings and the financial care for your family depends on the quality of your estate plan.
