Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 13, 1995 TAG: 9511150001
SECTION: MONEY PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JANE BRYANT QUINN WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Or so charged Arlington, Va., attorney George Dodge. ``It appears,'' Dodge wrote smugly in his county's bar association journal, that Burger ``chose not to consult an estate planning lawyer. That decision will cost his estate thousands of dollars.''
Funny, right? Years from now, it may be told as a lawyer joke. There's just one problem. It's dead wrong. As a model for sensible estate planning, Burger makes more sense than Dodge.
What's more, Burger's decision to write his own will raises some questions that lawmakers should think about. What's wrong with preparing a plain vanilla will yourself? If your family agrees that the will is OK, why should lawyers intervene?
But first, to attend to the chief justice's reputation. Burger and his wife, Elvera - who died a year before he did - did indeed consult lawyers and took steps to minimize their taxes. That's clear from Elvera Burger's will, which Dodge said he didn't consider.
Burger's probate estate came to $1.8 million. The couple's combined estate plan saved more money than the plan that Dodge vaguely suggested in his article, says Arlington attorney James Maloney, who is handling the Burger estate. When I talked to Dodge, he couldn't clearly explain his proposed plan. He said he wasn't an expert on estates as large as $1.8 million. Apparently not.
Rather than being inadequate, the Burger wills send a challenging message to lawyers everywhere. This well-to-do couple put their wills on a single piece of paper. They ducked most of the complexities that lawyers love and achieved exactly what they wanted. They cut their estate tax and left their property to their heirs with a minimum of fuss.
Burger's handcrafted language takes a little more discussion. Lawyers trade scary tales about such wills and the legal mess they can leave behind. But lawyer-written wills can leave messes, too. Reform-minded attorneys are urging the states to go easier on wills that people prepare themselves.
Here's a summary of current law:
On handwritten wills that haven't been witnessed: They're accepted in about 30 states, including Virginia, says Lawrence Waggoner, professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School. Some states require that you write every word yourself. Others accept preprinted will forms if the key sections are in your handwriting.
The remaining 20 states throw out these wills, even when the family supports them.
Typed or preprinted wills that you sign and date but that haven't been witnessed: In almost all states, including Virginia, such a will is rejected, for fear it was typed by someone else and you signed it unaware.
A videotape of you reciting your bequests. Invalid, period.
There are many good reasons not to write your will yourself. To take just one example, a drafting mistake might confuse your heirs. Say that you leave some money to ``Barbara and her children.'' Do you mean ``Barbara, if living, and if not to her children?'' Or, ``divided equally among Barbara and all her children?'' Or ``half to Barbara and half to her children?''
Scores of similar traps await. Even if you follow preprinted will forms, you might misinterpret them.
The biggest risk with a self-drafted will is that a court will throw it out, due to some picky little error. But some people simply won't go to a lawyer; they'll write their own will in secret or from a hospital bed.
by CNB