How To Screw Up a Perfectly Good Death
There’s a fabulous little isle in the Office Max store. Maybe you’ve seen it when you were looking for something you needed just enough to cross that fifty dollar threshold in order to use the ten dollar off coupon.
For you do-it-yourselfers this is the aisle to be in. Do-it-yourself legal doesn’t end in the business forms section of your local store. There are places all over the web to create all sorts of legal forms, too.
From divorce to bankruptcy to real estate transactions, discount legal is just a trip to the office store and forty bucks away. In the store near my house there were “ten different ways to screw up a real estate transaction” available. There were all kinds of ways to mess up an estate, power of attorney, a will and a couple of vague, “general agreements”.
In a perfect world, I would imagine that a person could buy their lawyer-kit, fill in the blanks and be on their way. There are probably plenty of people who have done it successfully or at least they think they’ve been successful so far. Usually, everything is rainbows and puppies until probate court has to get involved, anyway.
When the surviving heirs begin liquidating the estate they usually find a few surprises with a deed or trust. Sometimes the issues can be corrected relatively easily and other times there are challenges. “Challenges” is an understatement in some circumstances because what went wrong usually couldn’t have been thought of until it actually happened.
Never before have consumers had the power to easily create a monumental mess for their family other than today. For consumers mesmerized with being their own legal council and saving tons money, it’s a road trip or point and click away. Unfortunately, there are a lot of times that the forty dollar kit ends up costing the surviving family members, spouse or estate ten times more to clean up than it would have cost to just hire a professional in the first place.
Most of the time it isn’t the financial expense involved that is the issue to the surviving family, it’s the grind of estate settlement that seems as if it’s never ending. It can go on for months, even years. Dealing with loss of a loved one is difficult enough but throw in legal and financial mayhem and it becomes cruel and unusual punishment.
You probably won’t find that warning in the forty dollar packet. They also didn’t mention your mom will end up bawling her eyes out at a conference table trying clean up the mess or your children trying to figure out who owns the financial institution you named as a trustee. Apparently, banks buying banks shell game wasn’t mentioned on a warning in the forty dollar packet, either.
It seems that the only form missing from the do-it-yourself isle is how to clean up the mess the do-it-yourself forms can make when the average, every day consumer tries to be an attorney for forty bucks.
If it was that easy and that fool proof to practice law, why the heck would any lawyer be saddling themselves with six figures in student loans when they could just load up a grocery cart with forms at Office Max?
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Real Life in Bonita Springs is a project by Chris Griffith dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers about the Bonita Springs, Florida area. Find out what it is really like to live in Bonita Springs, Florida by reading about our fair city. You’ll get the latest in local real estate information, Bonita Springs real estate market reports and a little bit of humor. If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story about the idea, after all, this site is just for you.
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Tags: attorney, deed, estate, lawyer, real estate
I own a title insurance company and have been in the real estate business in SW Florida for around twenty five years. I worked as a real estate paralegal for many years with some of the best attorneys in our community. This issue of “do it yourself” has always been a joke in our world because literally 95% of the time these forms just create title defects and essentially make it more difficult for us. The biggest example is the “Quit-Claim Deed” unless you have a good grasp on Florida’s homestead law, know the difference between an address and a legal description or a Grantor and Grantee please seek legal advice before you attempt to do this on your own. Even attorneys from out of State, with good intentions, have a tendency to make matters worse.
Thank you, Debra. It’s always great to hear from the experts on this!
Chris,
For years, I’ve loved reading your posts! The honesty and insight you bring out it great. I have to agree with you and Debra. There are so many minor details that are overlooked, and they can cause huge problems. Often, to clean up the mess could be more costly than having a professional do it in the first place. If I am sick. I go to the Dr. If I were getting a divorce. I would call an attorney. Selling a house, Call a Realtor!
… the great Ray Nellum has spoken.
Are you going to NOLA NAR or BarCamp?