Wills, Google and Suze Oman

            A 75-year old retired professional comes to do a Will.  Wills are usually the least expensive thing I do.  The client tells me what they want and I put it together.  That was not the case with this woman.  She wants to talk about Wills, in general.  She has been doing internet research.  Am I familiar with Suze Orman?  Yes, I am.  Do I agree with Suze Orman?  Not always.  What do I think of Trusts?  It depends on what your assets are and what you want to do with them.  It depends on your life situation.  For example, if you are a single woman and have one child to whom you want to leave everything, my advice is different than if you are leaving everything to nieces and nephews.  If you are in a terminal condition, right now, my advice is different.  The client bought along a set of Suze Orman CDs.  Do I want to listen to them?  Not unless she wants to pay me by the hour to listen and tells me exactly what she wants me to listen to, so I can take notes and tell her what I think the next time we talk.  She doesn’t want to do that.  I don’t blame her.

            She shows me a form will she pulled off the internet.  She asks if it is not the best will I have ever seen.  No, it’s not.  The first thing I see wrong with it, without reading it, is it is not self-proving which means a witness has to go to the courthouse to swear to it to get it admitted to probate.  “Listen,” I warn her, “If you do a Will wrong you don’t realize you did it wrong until you are dead, and then it’s too late to fix.”

            We get down to business.  She wants to leave something to her friend, Josephine, and something to her sister, Christina, with the rest to a charity.  Okay, if Josephine dies before she does, where does she want her share to go?  She never thought of that.  Definitely not to Josephine’s children.  She doesn’t like them.  She’ll have to get back to me.  Okay, same question for Christina, if Christina dies before you do, who gets her share?  She doesn’t know.  Once again, not to Christina’s children.  They are no good.  I ask how old Josephine and Christina are.  They are both her age.  I ask how much all her assets are worth, about a million dollars.  Okay, just think about this for a minute, what percentage are you leaving each beneficiary.  She doesn’t know.  Okay, if you leave a third, a third and a third, and everyone is 75 years old, how likely is it that Josephine and Christina are going to spend all this money before they die?  What?  Seventy-five-year-olds are not usually big on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Where does she think the money goes when they die?  She didn’t think of that. 

            She could leave a larger share to the charity or dole out annual payments to the individual beneficiaries leaving the remainder to the charity.  I am told that is too much money to give the charity.  

            Who does she want to be her personal representative?  What?  Her executor, who does she want it to be?  Oh, my friend, Ermessenda who lives in Ecuador.  Ermessenda cannot be your personal representative because she is not related to you and she lives in a foreign country.  She does not quality to be personal representative in Florida.  Client doesn’t like that.  Ermessenda is so smart.  I’m sure she is.  Plus, I explain to her, naming a person who is not a beneficiary is not a good idea.  They are not receiving any of the money and it’s a hard job.  That’s why she wants Ermessenda, because she is so smart.  She would be better at liquidating assets.  I understand, but she can’t do that from Ecuador.  I recommend you name Josephine or Christina or Josephine AND Christina together.  She says Josephine and Christina are both very kind, but not very smart.  How can she be certain it will be done correctly and everyone will get their money?  How can she be sure one of them will not steal the money?

            I tell her she can count on that because of the probate judges.  She does not trust judges.  I tell her that she can trust the probate judges in Broward County to make sure the correct beneficiary gets her money.  The Broward County probate judges work hard to make sure everything is done correctly.  She does not believe that from what she has read on the internet.  I tell her then she has been misinformed, because our judges are serious as a heart attack.  If someone steals money they can put them in jail.  She asks why they would care so much the money goes to the right people.  That’s a good question.  It could be because they take their jobs seriously and care about what they do.  If you are a looking for a nefarious reason I’d say it’s because they do not want to pick up a newspaper and read they let someone steal a million dollars out from under their noses.  They do not let it happen.  She tells me what I am telling her is not what she read on the internet.  I haven’t seen her since.