I recently found out that August is national make your will month.  I did not know that was a thing until recently, but now I know.  I am not going to tell you to get your will done this month, as that would be silly and definitely be rushing things, and we don’t want to rush!  

The ten-time national championship and all-time great UCLA basketball coach John Wooden used to tell his players to “Be Quick, but Don’t Hurry.”  I played basketball through high school and heard this quote early on in my playing days.  At first I wondered what it was that coach Wooden meant by the phrase, but as I played longer it began to make more sense.  In basketball, players need to move quickly to succeed.  A slow basketball player will not be able to get past a defensive player or get open for a shot.  A slow basketball player will also not be able to defend a faster basketball player, so the offensive player will be able to score more easily, so the quick part always made sense to me, but the “don’t hurry” was the perplexing part, until I realized that he meant “don’t rush.”  In basketball, if you rush a play or rush anything, that is when you make mistakes and leave an opening for the offense or defense to overcome whatever it is you are trying to do as a basketball player and a team.  Rushing leads to mistakes and losses on the basketball court, which is not what you want if you are playing a basketball game.  I always played basketball to win!  (even if that wasn’t always the outcome I got!)

The same is true in setting up an estate plan.  You don’t want to rush an estate plan, as that is where mistakes can be made.  Whether you are rushing, so you forget a beneficiary or an asset, or you set up the wrong person as your representative because you are rushing, you don’t want that type of mistake to make it into your estate plan.  You can also miss an important detail about the terms of an estate plan if you are rushing, which can cause trouble after you have passed away.  You don’t want your estate plan to take forever to set up – you want to move through the process as quickly as you can without unnecessary delays – but you just don’t want to rush it!

 

Rushing An Estate Plan Can Lead to Things Getting Missed

Whenever I meet with a potential client, I like to schedule enough time to discuss who the potential client wants to leave assets to in detail.  As we are having the discussion of who should be the named beneficiaries of a will or a trust, we also talk about the type of assets the potential client has…possibly a house, investments, retirement accounts, other investment real estate like rental properties, or even things like a family farm passed down from parents or grandparents.  Without a full discussion of the assets involved, and who should get what assets, an estate plan can miss an important detail. 

I have had clients who tell me they want to leave everything to their spouse when we meet, only to frantically call or email within a day or two to tell me that a certain piece of real estate needs to go to their siblings, as that real estate needs to be kept in the family.  We certainly did not mean to rush the estate planning meeting process, but I am glad they realized what needed to happen before we got everything signed and completed.  I would like to think we would have caught the oversight in the process of drafting and reviewing the documents prior to final signing, but this one experience showed me how rushing things can create a problem.

I have also had clients who I have met in the hospital or ICU, as they were entering the last few days of their lives.  Although I do not like to have this much last minute planning take place, I am willing to get something done if I am available to do so.  One client wanted me to sit by his bedside and type the will up as we sat together.  While this can work, I told him that it would probably be best to have a discussion of what he wanted to do, then I would draft the documents, send them to his children for review, and come back the next day to sign everything.  He agreed that could be a good idea.  When I sent the documents to his children for review, they called me and let me know that the person he named as his personal representative in the will was his deceased first wife, not his current wife.  He had confused the two individuals as we were talking, and I was able to make that change before we got everything signed.  I was glad we had not rushed getting everything signed on the same day, so that we could get things right for when he passed away just a couple of days after we got everything signed.

 

You Don’t Want to Rush Your Review of the Estate Planning Documents

After I draft documents for my clients, I send an initial draft for review by the client before signing everything.  This gives my clients a chance to review the documents for accuracy and also gives them a chance to make sure they understand the terms of the documents prior to signing.  I would like to believe that every time I write a document the first draft is perfect and does not need any revision, but that is simply not the case.  Sometimes I have misunderstood what someone wanted the document to say after we met.  Sometimes a client has changed their mind about what they want to do and who they want to leave assets to in the will or trust.  And sometimes I have typos or other errors – like mixing up whose address or phone number belongs to whom – that are in the first draft, and those errors need to be fixed.

Although I appreciate the faith of people who tell me that they trust me and they don’t need to review what I have written, I insist people thoroughly review the drafts.  I had a client once who told me they had reviewed the drafts and were ready to sign.  We got everything signed and then the client passed away several years later.  Unfortunately, the named beneficiary of the estate plan contained an error.  Assets were supposed to go to his brother for the duration of the brother’s life, and then go to a charity after the brother passed away.  However, in some sort of terrible typo mistake, the estate plan had the client’s name written as the beneficiary, not the client’s brother’s name.  The error could be fixed by going to the probate court and pointing out that it was just that the incorrect name was written into the document and not caught on review prior to signing, but the court process was time consuming and expensive.  Even when we were trying not to rush, a rushed review of the draft documents ended up causing trouble after the client had passed away.

 

Not All Errors Can Be Fixed After Death, So You Want to Get It Right

The client in the story above was able to show proof that all of the plans for the estate plan wanted to name his brother as a beneficiary, so that error could be corrected, but that is not always the case.  Sometimes a person meant to make a change, but never got to it, or a person wanted to add a different beneficiary, but did not properly add the beneficiary according to the correct technical rules of changing a will or a trust.  In that type of case, if there is no proof of intent to change an estate plan, then the estate plan cannot be changed post death.  In fact, in most cases changes to an estate plan cannot be made post death, as the written estate plan is what conveys your wishes concerning how to distribute assets after death.

As you are setting up your estate plan, you want to move through the process without unnecessarily delaying.  You don’t want to put off an estate plan for months or years because you think things might change, or because you are unsure of what to have your estate plan say.  It is far better to set up your estate plan and have it in place, knowing you can change things in the future, but without rushing the process and potentially making mistakes.  If you would like the assistance of an experienced estate planning attorney in setting up your estate plan, one who will not rush the process, please click the button below.