April 30, 2025 • 9 mins
You can go online and craft a Will for $100 or less – sometimes a lot less.
AARP writes on this subject all the time. But they make it clear that online
Wills are only for the most basic circumstances.
So, if you have a small estate and want to leave everything to your spouse
and then to your kids, an online Will works – IF you fill it out and execute it
correctly.
But, what kinds of issues make online Wills risky?
A. Minor children
B. Second marriages
C. Medium size estates and larger
D. Disability – of the testator or the beneficiary
E. Real estate in more than one state
F. Children with “issues” such as poor money skills, bad spouses,
poor judgment, drug and alcohol abuse, big debt, bad health
G. Significant “non-probate” assets
H. Planning for one’s own disability
I. “Legacy” assets, including family cottage
J. Family business.
Beneficiary Designations.
Executing a Will is only one part of an estate plan. You also need to
consider:
A. Power of Attorney
B. Living Will
C. Power of Attorney for Health Care
D. Beneficiary designations.
I have never met a client who didn’t believe his/her estate was simple
– most were mistaken.
AARP writes on this subject all the time. But they make it clear that online
Wills are only for the most basic circumstances.
So, if you have a small estate and want to leave everything to your spouse
and then to your kids, an online Will works – IF you fill it out and execute it
correctly.
But, what kinds of issues make online Wills risky?
A. Minor children
B. Second marriages
C. Medium size estates and larger
D. Disability – of the testator or the beneficiary
E. Real estate in more than one state
F. Children with “issues” such as poor money skills, bad spouses,
poor judgment, drug and alcohol abuse, big debt, bad health
G. Significant “non-probate” assets
H. Planning for one’s own disability
I. “Legacy” assets, including family cottage
J. Family business.
Beneficiary Designations.
Executing a Will is only one part of an estate plan. You also need to
consider:
A. Power of Attorney
B. Living Will
C. Power of Attorney for Health Care
D. Beneficiary designations.
I have never met a client who didn’t believe his/her estate was simple
– most were mistaken.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
If you're listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth
Financial I Meani Wagner along with Bob's spond seller, you
know it turns out not all wills are created equal.
We preach a lot on the show about the fact
that you can be a smart investor. It can be
invested well, you can think things through like tax alpha.
But man, if you are missing good proper estate planning,
(00:28):
you're missing the boat entirely on being really intentional about
where those assets go and how they're passed.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
On.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Joining us tonight, our estate planning expert from the law
firm of Wood and Lamping, Mark Rekman Mark, what you're
telling us is, yeah, not all wills are created equal.
Someone saying Okay, I just want to check this off
my list really quickly. I'm going to jump online, pay
one hundred bucks and done. May not be the best option.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Well, this is very common that you see these offers
these There are service is online where you can go
online and buy a will package or for that matter,
amy you can find them online for free. I understand
the problem with that is that the document itself really
isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is
(01:16):
understanding how it affects your assets and how it works.
It's like it's like buying a fancy tool if you
if you don't understand, if you don't read the instructions
and understand and get help using it, it's it's it's
useless to you. So online wills are great for some folks.
I have been volunteering for over a decade. We do
(01:39):
wills for first responders around the Tri state area. It's
part of an organization here in town called Wills for
first Responders, and we bring firemen and police and e
m ts in and we do simple wills like this
for them on the spot. Takes an hour, hour and
a half and we've on thousands of them over the
(02:02):
last couple of decades. So I understand their role and
their use. But they are also very, very limited. They
can only apply in certain circumstances. And that's what I
wanted to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, so walk us through that.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
At what point is one of those online wills maybe
not a good option for you? How do you know
if it's potentially a good fit or not.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, if you have a small estate and if you
want to leave everything to your spouse and then to
your kids. Then an online will can work if you
fill it out correctly, if you sign it correctly, and
if it's witnessed correctly. But there are a lot of
issues that complicate things very quickly. First one that comes
(02:47):
to my mind is minor children. If you've got minor children,
you want to not only appoint a guardian, which is
probably the single most important reason to have a will
to begin with. Do you want to appoint a guardian,
but you also want to for how money will be managed,
who will manage it, and under what kind of a
management structure. Without that, you're going to have to use
(03:07):
a guardianship. Guardian ships are okay, but they're only okay.
They're they're really inconvenient. Second marriages Amy, that's a very
complicated thing because especially if each party has children from
a prior marriage, as you know exactly, and I get
(03:28):
one when I talk to couples who were in a
second marriage, I get different answers from the men that
I do from the women. I hate to draw wines
along gender grounds, but it has It's something I have
experienced consistently. Men tend to want to leave their money
to their wives and let them figure it out. Women
tend to want to leave their money to their children
(03:49):
and feel very conflicted about leaving out their husband. So
it is interesting when if you don't have that conversation
with somebody, how do you make that decision? How do
you end up with a product that matches your actual wishes? Mark?
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Just to drive home the point I think you're making,
I had a meeting like this yesterday and it was
not a second marriage situation at all. But what I
have found, and I've been an advisor for you know,
thirty four years now, and sometimes I think I know
how to do all this stuff. I am always amazed
when I bring in a really competent estate planning attorney
like yourself into a meeting and we actually start to
(04:27):
talk to the clients about their specific assets and intentions.
There are always things that come up where if that
attorney wasn't sitting there guiding the couple on how to
construct their estate plan, the whole thing would have had
a completely different result if not for that seasoned professional
(04:48):
estate planning attorney guiding the way I've always advocated for
bringing an attorney in versus a quick and dirty, one
hundred dollars will.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, it's serta, we got to increase your costs. But
it seems to me that this is an area where
quality becomes the most clearly the most important thing. You
don't want to ministry, you will later. That's exactly it.
That's exactly it. And for those of us with medium
estates and larger estates, it's especially important that you do
(05:18):
not use these pre printed standard forms. Another thing I
see all the time is there's a disability in the family.
Maybe the person signed the will is disabled, although more
commonly I meet people who have disabled spouses or disabled children,
and that changes how you want to leave money. You
don't want to leave money outright to someone who is
(05:39):
incapable of handling it. You don't want to leave money
outright to someone who is on a needs based government
benefit program of some kind, and so those wills have
to look very differently than a healthy family profile guys.
Another common one I run into is people with second homes.
(06:00):
They got a cabin down at Lake Cumberland, or they
have a second home in New England, or a lot
of people have property in the Sunshine state of Florida.
If you have real estate in more than one state,
a simple will just is not going to hack it. Mark.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I want to bring out another issue, and I remember
one of the first meetings I ever sat in as
an advisor was a couple who had adult children, two
or three of them, and one of them just could
not get their act together. In this couple had amassed,
you know, to them, a large amount of money, and
(06:39):
they were really concerned about that child if something were
to happen to them right that day, the next day,
sometime soon, how that child would be able to manage
that money. There's probably not an online will that you
can find anywhere that's going to help you make sure
that you can protect a child. Potentially, even from those assets,
(06:59):
you're going to need someone who can craft something a
lot more specific well.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
And to add to that amy, you're going to need
to talk to someone who can walk you through the options.
There are a lot of different solutions to these situations,
a lot of different benefit programs that family members are
involved in. If you're dealing with an experienced a state lawyer,
he or she will tell you, you know, here's an idea
that may fit your family profiler. Let's talk about your
(07:27):
goals or what is it that you want to happen,
and then guide them based on the resources available here
in the community, or how not to screw up things
that are already in place. Boy, it's a real problem
if you leave money to someone who is disabled and
receiving Medicaid or SSI, which are government programs for disabled people.
(07:48):
If you leave money to one of those people, you
can easily screw up their benefits, if not completely make
them ineligible. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I love what you've told told us for years now,
and I liked it so much I wrote it down.
And this, this is a Mark Reckman quote. I have
never met a client who didn't believe his or her
estate plan was simple. Most were mistaken.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I love that, you know, that's funny. I remember one
time talking to my own father about his estate plan.
And he and I practiced law together, so I you know,
we were close and I was familiar with his situation.
And he said to me, you know, you know everything
about me, And I said, well, Dad, I think I do,
but you know, would you would you mind writing it
(08:37):
all down? Well, he grumbled, I don't want to write
this down. So what I did is I this was
back in the days when we had dictaphones. I gave
him my dictaphone and I said, you know, the next
time you drive to Florida when mom is driving, I
want you to take this dictaphone and dictate every asset
you got and describe them a little bit, tell me
where they are. When he came back with that recording
(08:57):
and I had it typed up, it was four pages.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So nobody's yeah, nobody's estates are simple, and maybe those
online will not the best fit for you. Great perspective,
as always from our estate planning expert from the law
firm of Wood and Lamping, Mark Grekman. You're listening to
Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial here on fifty
five KRC.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
The Toxation
If you're listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth
Financial I Meani Wagner along with Bob's spond seller, you
know it turns out not all wills are created equal.
We preach a lot on the show about the fact
that you can be a smart investor. It can be
invested well, you can think things through like tax alpha.
But man, if you are missing good proper estate planning,
(00:28):
you're missing the boat entirely on being really intentional about
where those assets go and how they're passed.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
On.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Joining us tonight, our estate planning expert from the law
firm of Wood and Lamping, Mark Rekman Mark, what you're
telling us is, yeah, not all wills are created equal.
Someone saying Okay, I just want to check this off
my list really quickly. I'm going to jump online, pay
one hundred bucks and done. May not be the best option.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Well, this is very common that you see these offers
these There are service is online where you can go
online and buy a will package or for that matter,
amy you can find them online for free. I understand
the problem with that is that the document itself really
isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is
(01:16):
understanding how it affects your assets and how it works.
It's like it's like buying a fancy tool if you
if you don't understand, if you don't read the instructions
and understand and get help using it, it's it's it's
useless to you. So online wills are great for some folks.
I have been volunteering for over a decade. We do
(01:39):
wills for first responders around the Tri state area. It's
part of an organization here in town called Wills for
first Responders, and we bring firemen and police and e
m ts in and we do simple wills like this
for them on the spot. Takes an hour, hour and
a half and we've on thousands of them over the
(02:02):
last couple of decades. So I understand their role and
their use. But they are also very, very limited. They
can only apply in certain circumstances. And that's what I
wanted to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, so walk us through that.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
At what point is one of those online wills maybe
not a good option for you? How do you know
if it's potentially a good fit or not.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, if you have a small estate and if you
want to leave everything to your spouse and then to
your kids. Then an online will can work if you
fill it out correctly, if you sign it correctly, and
if it's witnessed correctly. But there are a lot of
issues that complicate things very quickly. First one that comes
(02:47):
to my mind is minor children. If you've got minor children,
you want to not only appoint a guardian, which is
probably the single most important reason to have a will
to begin with. Do you want to appoint a guardian,
but you also want to for how money will be managed,
who will manage it, and under what kind of a
management structure. Without that, you're going to have to use
(03:07):
a guardianship. Guardian ships are okay, but they're only okay.
They're they're really inconvenient. Second marriages Amy, that's a very
complicated thing because especially if each party has children from
a prior marriage, as you know exactly, and I get
(03:28):
one when I talk to couples who were in a
second marriage, I get different answers from the men that
I do from the women. I hate to draw wines
along gender grounds, but it has It's something I have
experienced consistently. Men tend to want to leave their money
to their wives and let them figure it out. Women
tend to want to leave their money to their children
(03:49):
and feel very conflicted about leaving out their husband. So
it is interesting when if you don't have that conversation
with somebody, how do you make that decision? How do
you end up with a product that matches your actual wishes? Mark?
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Just to drive home the point I think you're making,
I had a meeting like this yesterday and it was
not a second marriage situation at all. But what I
have found, and I've been an advisor for you know,
thirty four years now, and sometimes I think I know
how to do all this stuff. I am always amazed
when I bring in a really competent estate planning attorney
like yourself into a meeting and we actually start to
(04:27):
talk to the clients about their specific assets and intentions.
There are always things that come up where if that
attorney wasn't sitting there guiding the couple on how to
construct their estate plan, the whole thing would have had
a completely different result if not for that seasoned professional
(04:48):
estate planning attorney guiding the way I've always advocated for
bringing an attorney in versus a quick and dirty, one
hundred dollars will.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, it's serta, we got to increase your costs. But
it seems to me that this is an area where
quality becomes the most clearly the most important thing. You
don't want to ministry, you will later. That's exactly it.
That's exactly it. And for those of us with medium
estates and larger estates, it's especially important that you do
(05:18):
not use these pre printed standard forms. Another thing I
see all the time is there's a disability in the family.
Maybe the person signed the will is disabled, although more
commonly I meet people who have disabled spouses or disabled children,
and that changes how you want to leave money. You
don't want to leave money outright to someone who is
(05:39):
incapable of handling it. You don't want to leave money
outright to someone who is on a needs based government
benefit program of some kind, and so those wills have
to look very differently than a healthy family profile guys.
Another common one I run into is people with second homes.
(06:00):
They got a cabin down at Lake Cumberland, or they
have a second home in New England, or a lot
of people have property in the Sunshine state of Florida.
If you have real estate in more than one state,
a simple will just is not going to hack it. Mark.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I want to bring out another issue, and I remember
one of the first meetings I ever sat in as
an advisor was a couple who had adult children, two
or three of them, and one of them just could
not get their act together. In this couple had amassed,
you know, to them, a large amount of money, and
(06:39):
they were really concerned about that child if something were
to happen to them right that day, the next day,
sometime soon, how that child would be able to manage
that money. There's probably not an online will that you
can find anywhere that's going to help you make sure
that you can protect a child. Potentially, even from those assets,
(06:59):
you're going to need someone who can craft something a
lot more specific well.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
And to add to that amy, you're going to need
to talk to someone who can walk you through the options.
There are a lot of different solutions to these situations,
a lot of different benefit programs that family members are
involved in. If you're dealing with an experienced a state lawyer,
he or she will tell you, you know, here's an idea
that may fit your family profiler. Let's talk about your
(07:27):
goals or what is it that you want to happen,
and then guide them based on the resources available here
in the community, or how not to screw up things
that are already in place. Boy, it's a real problem
if you leave money to someone who is disabled and
receiving Medicaid or SSI, which are government programs for disabled people.
(07:48):
If you leave money to one of those people, you
can easily screw up their benefits, if not completely make
them ineligible. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I love what you've told told us for years now,
and I liked it so much I wrote it down.
And this, this is a Mark Reckman quote. I have
never met a client who didn't believe his or her
estate plan was simple. Most were mistaken.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I love that, you know, that's funny. I remember one
time talking to my own father about his estate plan.
And he and I practiced law together, so I you know,
we were close and I was familiar with his situation.
And he said to me, you know, you know everything
about me, And I said, well, Dad, I think I do,
but you know, would you would you mind writing it
(08:37):
all down? Well, he grumbled, I don't want to write
this down. So what I did is I this was
back in the days when we had dictaphones. I gave
him my dictaphone and I said, you know, the next
time you drive to Florida when mom is driving, I
want you to take this dictaphone and dictate every asset
you got and describe them a little bit, tell me
where they are. When he came back with that recording
(08:57):
and I had it typed up, it was four pages.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So nobody's yeah, nobody's estates are simple, and maybe those
online will not the best fit for you. Great perspective,
as always from our estate planning expert from the law
firm of Wood and Lamping, Mark Grekman. You're listening to
Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial here on fifty
five KRC.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
The Toxation
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