Improperly doing the little things in estate planning, often end up costing families the most money.
Talk about estate planning mistakes often focuses on the big picture things that people get wrong. Thousands of articles are written, whenever a celebrity or wealthy person makes a big estate planning mistake, such as failing to update an estate plan or not having one at all.
You can find article after article about complex trust provisions that are improperly drafted.
All of those things are important. We can and should learn from them.
However, it is important to understand, that for most people, small errors are the biggest problems in their estate plans, as the Pauls Valley Daily Democrat points out in “Oversights can cost your heirs money.”
For most people, minor mistakes like not having enough witness signatures on a will or not having the magic legal words in a trust document are what makes estate planning go awry. The law can be extremely formal at times and minding all of the little details matters.
If things are not done precisely right, then all the proper planning in the world can be undone with the stroke of a judge’s pen.
Fortunately, there do not have to be any minor oversights in your estate plan.
You can go to an experienced estate planning attorney who will make sure that every little, formal detail is taken care of.
Reference: Pauls Valley Daily Democrat (Jan. 25, 2017) “Oversights can cost your heirs money.”
