Should a Consumer Trust an Online Trust?
Online services help consumers do everything from open a bank account to buy a house and plan their estate. While these do-it-yourself services are cost-saving, an online trust established by these DIY sites may lack legal particulars. Instead, a consumer is better off working with an attorney in estate planning in San Diego than taking their chances with a DIY estate plan.
The Issue with Online Legal Document Services
These services typically handle a plethora of legal documents, from divorce to child custody to business licenses and more. To attract customers, they offer a bargain price and compare their services to those of an attorney – which makes them look considerably more affordable.
With consumers questioning whether an attorney for estate planning in San Diego is worth it, these bargain sites look more appealing. However, legal professionals recommend consumers think more about the quality than the budget-saving opportunity.
Most consumers have no idea what they are purchasing when they use these online services. These services have spent years creating advertisements that show them as the alternative to an attorney. They will even have attorneys present their commercials and use testimonials of customers speaking highly of their service.
The truth, however, is hidden behind their creative marketing. These services are not a replacement for an attorney, and when one reads their legal disclaimers, they see that. Instead, these companies offer document assistance, which means they assist consumers with finding, completing, and printing legal documents.
However, the documents they have access to are generic and rarely examine the complexities of local laws.
Most of the generic forms are created without consulting an attorney, too, which means they could conflict with California estate planning laws.
No Guarantee Documents Will Be Effective
After a consumer spends hundreds creating their online trust, they still have no guarantee the materials will be effective. Some customers will leave funds to a special needs child, but the way they do so eliminates their qualifications for government benefits. That leaves their special needs child only the estate to live off for the rest of their life.
Also, generic online documents lack the ability to protect a beneficiary’s inheritance from lawsuits or bankruptcy.
A well-designed, professional estate plan crafted by an attorney offering estate planning in San Diego protects assets, ensures that a client’s resources go where they should, and provides that inheritances are used as they should be. They also use legally enforceable provisions so that a customer’s estate plan is followed.
Online document assistance services cannot promise any of that. These services do not publicly announce that they put people at risk. Instead, they squeeze it into the fine print that no one reads. This disclaimer, if read, would indicate that their documents were created by attorneys, but were not meant to represent specific state laws.
When one thinks about the cost of an inaccurate or non-enforceable estate plan, the cost of hiring an attorney makes much more sense.