$1200.00 cost for two "mirror" wills for DH and me.

[mathjak107]

Our lawyer saved us from what could have been a horrible thing . When ny had lower estate tax limits we did not know there was a tax cliff . If you went over ny’s 1 million dollar limit at the time your estate did not just pay on the overage at the time . If you went over by 5% the estate paid estate taxes from dollar one .

So we needed special trusts called disclaimer trusts . Today ny is the same as the federal level . But these trusts are still in place just in case we need them . If not they are totally transparent . They perfectly fit our needs .

Had we done this on our own we would have been totally exposed at that time

[akck]

We paid that amount for our wills, POAs, advance health care directive and burial form. The will were simple, but as others mentioned, we wanted to be sure nothing was left out. Also, it made us do it as I've had multiple WillMaker wills that were never completed over the years.

[mathjak107]

My wife’s first husband is deceased .her husband had two estranged children .the mother took the kids out of state and no one heard from them again .

So their grandpa wrote them out of the will by name .

Well grandpa dies and everything went to grandma . while grandma was still alive my wife’s husband died .

Years later grandma finally died ..

The court had to sign off all income taxes were paid in order to transfer ownership of a business..

The court noticed that their were no provisions for my wife’s first husband to die before his mom.

So the judge ruled the document defective . The step children had to be notified there was a defective document and they may be in line for an inheritance .

So they got attorneys and a court battle was on , 100k in legal fees and a year later my wife was forced in to an out of court settlement with the 2 kids who were to get nothing .

Now the missing sentence triggered a 400k buy out and a 100k in legal fees and grandpas wishes that these kids get nothing was null and void because they used a general practioner who was a friend of the family instead of an estate attorney who is a specialist . This was a canned internet document that was used and poorly constructed at that .

When we looked around for an estate attorney to do our paper work we brought copies of the old will from this fiasco and asked if that looked okay .

Our new attorney read it and immediately said it was missing a provision for predeceasing and would likely be challenged if it happened.

That gave us confidence we picked at least someone knowledable in their field

[selhars]

Wow. What cheap prices. I'm single no kids.
When I was living in the D.C area I paid $1,500 for a will, POA, and living will/medical directive -- and that was in 2003.

And in the Philly/So Jersey area the estate planning eldercare/special needs law firm my mom and aunt used paid 5K (2,500 each) when they went together to get their wills, POAs done. (the lawyer also looked over all finances/possessions, created an asset protection plan, gave us instructions, told us what to do/what moves to make, etc.)

[mathjak107]

Out of the 4800 we paid the disclaimer trusts were more than 1/2 the cost