Living Trust through LegalZoom

Creating a trust through Legal Zoom is not going to provide you with personalized service or recommendations, but rather a general trust document. For that reason (and many more), it will not be as good as using an attorney. An attorney can ask the proper questions and take a look at assets to ensure that a proper estate plan with the necessary provisions and documents are provided. An online program cannot offer the same. The last thing you want is to go through the process and expense of creating a trust for your father only to find out when he passes that it was not set up the way he wished.

I agree with Ms. Patton, and would like to add one thing. I recently had clients in my office that had purchased simple wills through one of those online programs, but were unsatisfied and not entirely sure if what they wanted to get accomplished was in fact accomplished. They came to my office to redo the wills, and were satisfied with the relationship of talking with a lawyer and having a lawyer answer their questions, etc. The only thing they regretted was purchasing the online wills first, and then paying a lawyer do do the same thing over again. I know other lawyers in my area with similar stories.

LegalZoom may work fine for you, particularly if as your comment to attorney Patton indicates all you are dealing with is a small bank account and your father's tangible personal property. Many have been able to use LegalZoom without a problem. Others can't. Most of us attorneys can relate stories about problems with wills or trusts prepared using an online service or a computer program. My most recent experience with a person who used LegalZoom living trust was that a probate was still necessary on her death because she named her daughter as the trustee and she failed to record a deed to transfer legal title for her residence to her daughter as trustee of her trust. When a the trustee of living trust is someone other than the settlor, a deed is required to transfer title of real property. Even without a deed to transfer title being recorded, if the settlor had named herself as trustee of her revocable trust, I could have gotten a court order that her residence was trust property because the trust had a statement that the house was included in the trust property. This failure to properly transfer property or use the right trustee for her trust, cost her estate about $8000. With a trust created through LegalZoom, problems will probably not be discovered until after the settlor is deceased. Those problems have to be dealt with by decedent's family and beneficiaries. Would you want to impose the costs of such problems, monetary and emotional, on your family and loved ones? The cost of having an attorney prepare a trust is usually significantly less than the costs that can result if there are problems with the trust. While using an attorney won't guarantee no problems, most of the problems I see with on-line or computer generated trusts should be avoided. I can't determine your ability to use LegalZoom. Should your father does go ahead with using it to prepare the trust, if possible, review the trust and any other documents prepared with an estate planning attorney to make sure they do what he wants to be done with his property.

The answer to your question of whether doing a living trust on Legalzoom is as good as an attorney is an emphatic NO. There are so many problems that arise when people try to go it alone, it is hard to know where to begin. The problem is that you don't know, what you don't know. For example, you can't even begin to plan unless you know what are your father's goals exactly, was he a veteran, does he qualify for Medi-Cal, etc.? I've seen clients health get better and then they require skilled-nursing care. Where does the money come from to pay for such after Medicare runs out? If he is a veteran, there are sometimes great resources available for him. In addition, do the beneficiaries of his estate have special needs? Does he have children from a prior relationship? Do family members have a history of getting along? Does your father currently have testamentary capacity? The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, Legalzoom type companies cannot address such complexities. It is the very reason they have a disclaimer at the bottom of their website absolving them of all liability. And (like many attorneys) I have personally seen my share of horror stories arising from do-it-yourself documents. I've even written an article specifically on Legalzoom's trusts here: http://www.the-trust-store.com/legal-issues/the-reality-about-legalzooms-living-trusts-a-true-horror-story/. In addition, you can find a few other articles I've written on the topic here: http://www.the-trust-store.com/ca-senior-resources/news-blog/. Please do your father and your family a favor and go see an experienced estate planning and elder law attorney. If cost is a concern, you can still find reasonably priced, hybrid virtual law firms to help you. Here is mine, in case you are interested: www.truststore.com. Good luck.

A licensed attorney is qualified to answer questions, prepare the will or trust instrument, and ensure the will or trust is executed properly. To ensure the will or trust is in compliance with California law, you may want to have a California attorney meet with your father to determine which instrument is best for him.