A recent Florida Supreme Court decision reminded me of a series of questions people have been asking me since I began practicing law. Friends are always asking me, “Do I need a will?” “How much will it cost?” and “Can I do it myself?” always in that order. My answers are; “Probably,” “It depends” and “Probably not.” The new case deals with the third question, “Can I do it myself?”
Before we get to the case, let’s look at the first two questions. If you do not have a will, Florida statutes dictate how your property will be distributed upon your death. Those statutes can get pretty complicated. If your plan of distribution is just the same as the statutory scheme, then maybe you do not need a will, but the odds of that are slim. The second thing a will does is name a personal representative to be in charge of the administration of your estate. The applicable Florida Statute may not provide for the same person as you would select. It is almost always best to have your own will prepared just the way you want, rather than having the statutes control everything.
It would be wrong of me to quote pricing for the drafting of a will in the context of this article. My advice is to call around to a few attorneys and get pricing information for your specific situation. There is no shortage of attorneys, and the market for this kind of work is very competitive. It is very unlikely that you will be overcharged.
Now let’s look at this new case out of the Florida Supreme Court. The decedent wrote her own will using a form she got from the internet or office supply store. It was called an “E-Z Legal Form,” which is funny, because using the form did not turn out to be easy. The decedent made a mistake, a simple mistake that anyone could have made. The Supreme Court ruled that it did not matter what the decedent meant to say. The only thing that mattered was what the words in the will actually expressed. The result was that a large part of the decedent’s estate did not go to the person the decedent wanted to receive the property.
Justice Pariente summed it up this way,
While I appreciate that there are many individuals in this state who might have difficulty affording a lawyer, this case does remind me of the old adage “penny- wise and pound-foolish.” Obviously, the cost of drafting a will through the use of a pre-printed form is likely substantially lower than the cost of hiring a knowledgeable lawyer. However, as illustrated by this case, the ultimate cost of utilizing such a form to draft one’s will has the potential to far surpass the cost of hiring a lawyer at the outset. In a case such as this, which involved a substantial sum of money, the time, effort and expense of extensive litigation undertaken in order to prove a testator’s true intent after the testator’s death can necessitate the expenditure of much more substantial amounts in attorney’s fees than was avoided during the testator’s life by the use of a pre-printed form.
The wise man learns from his mistakes, but the wiser man learns from other people’s mistakes.