Be Careful When Preparing Legal Documents
27th July 2010 by Bereaved No CommentsIf you are willing to devote a little time for research and you are confident of your own capabilities, then it may not be necessary for you to consult a lawyer every time you want to have some legal documents prepared.
Many websites offer low-cost and sometimes even free downloadable legal documents like wills and estate planning, divorces and change of names, to setting up and incorporating your new business venture.
Some of these websites have very informative articles or sometimes even videos which aid in making your decision. Once you create an account, you can answer a series of questions and the site will generate a custom document for you. There are sites which offer the simple forms for free while other sites allow you to download files for reference in making forms yourself.
These sites may be appropriate if you have fairly simple circumstances to deal with and straightforward answers to the questions, but there are many issues that will still be left in your hands.
If you create the legal document you need, do you know what to do with it? The site may provide that information for you, but it will vary from state to state and may vary by locality. A lawyer would be able to navigate through that for you, have the necessary paperwork ready, or even offer safe storage if necessary such as in the case of wills, which don’t have to be filed until its owner passes away.
You may be derailed in your efforts in cases when your answers are not straightforward. For example, in a second marriage you may want to leave your home to your children, but allow your spouse to live there until he or she dies. Websites may not be able to offer solutions for a lifetime estate.
Online forms will not be able to handle complex cases. In such cases, you will need an actual lawyer to ask the questions until such time that you get the necessary answers. At least these online forms don’t require payment upfront which gives you the leeway to cancel halfway through the process, when it’s already clear that they cannot provide the results you intended. While it will still take your time, it can also better prepare you for a visit to an attorney’s office.
You might be pleasantly surprised to find out that a visit to the attorney’s office is not as costly as you thought it would be. When evaluating your options, contact the attorney’s office first to know their rates for a particular service that you are looking for. If the costs don’t vary that much you might as well leave the paperwork to the experts.
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