Free Simple Will Course and Guide Launched!
Jun 24, 2024
When my grandfather passed on, I was just a few weeks away from heading out to law school. My grandmother helped raise me after my mother passed on, so when she started calling me in law school with legal questions, I did my best to explain things to her in plain English because whenever she talked to the attorney she got an answer she didn’t understand and a legal bill she didn’t want. So it was actually in law school that I saw the value of planning ahead to avoid problems.
Thing is, there are varying degrees of preparation with different solutions depending on how deeply our clients want to go. In this busy post-COVID, online solutions world, we found that people wanted resources and tools online in even the basic estate planning process. At the same time, they didn’t want to completely let go of a law firm and an attorney making sure their documents were done correctly, and they wanted to understand their documents and what they did. They also wanted lower costs than meeting with an attorney for 100% of the process in learning about estate planning. They also wanted to learn on their schedule and not necessarily just from 9 to 5. In short, it wasn’t wanting just the lowest price available, but a lower cost while making sure it was done right while having access to solid information.
Welcome to our new Free Simple Will guide and Free online Simple Will course to help make all of that happen. Last week, we did a livestream to introduce the new educational items at:
The Free Simple Will Guide is a basic overview of the main estate planning documents so people understand what they need just to have a basic plan. The course is to walk North Carolina residents through the process in a way that minimizes paid time with a law firm but provides substantial information on Wills and the other documents. The process also includes the forms necessary to complete their plan, a way to upload them to our law firm, and an overview to help make the most of the time they do have with an attorney live. And, yes, because time is money, our law firm can provide a much lower cost to get the documents done in North Carolina with as little as one virtual 30 minutes with the attorney and an in-person signing at either the Raleigh or Asheville offices.
While the course is designed for North Carolina residents, the basic information was created to be generally applicable in all fifty states to get a basic understanding of a Simple Will Estate Plan even if residents outside of North Carolina would have to work with an attorney in their area to get the actual work done.
“Well, why not just use a service like Legal Zoom?” I sometimes hear. It’s because over the many years I have been doing estate planning when people have asked me to review their DIY estate documents, between one-third and half of the time the legal documents are not even signed correctly, making them invalid. In many cases, the documents do not reflect what they thought they did. In one case, two very intelligent PhD’s who were married ended up doing their own documents, and:
- They disinherited each other;
- They didn’t name each other as first-in-line executor of each other’s estate; and
- The children got everything at age eighteen, which they didn’t want.
In the end, it didn’t matter because they signed their own Wills, witnessed each other’s Wills (which is prohibited under North Carolina law), and didn’t have a second witness at all, so their Will was completely invalid anyway. They ended up becoming great clients, and we helped create the plan they actually wanted and have updated things over the years with them.
Getting at least a basic estate plan created doesn’t need to be a huge ordeal with multiple meetings with an attorney if all you need are the basics. Please take a look at these free educational materials, and please pass them along to your loved ones who may need to get their own plans put together. Again, the materials are at:
So please stay safe, plan ahead, and enjoy life… and help the people you care about have peace of mind to do the same.
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