The dangers of do-it-yourself wills

Celebrities' estate planning gone wrong

This is a Forbes story about several public figures’ estate planning that had gone wrong. Many of the names mentioned in this story are very familiar to us and it goes to show that even celebrities like them cannot escape from proper planning of their estate. What more us?

I won’t want to reproduce all of the above in this blog but there is a particular item that specially caught my attention. The person is unfamiliar to me but I suppose being a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the United States would classify him as a public figure nonetheless.

This is what was written about Warren Burger:

You’d think a former Supreme Court Justice would get this right. He tried to write his own will in 176 words but his family may have paid the price for his brevity with over $450K in estate taxes and court fees that could have been avoided.

Lesson: Don’t try to write your own will or have your cousin who’s a criminal defense attorney write one for you. Instead, find a qualified estate planning attorney by asking other professionals for referrals, checking with your local bar association’s lawyer referral service, or searching networks like the American Academy of Estate Planning  Attorneys or the National Network of Estate Planning Attorney. Even if you use software to create your documents, at least have an estate planning attorney review them to check for any problems that may not be obvious.

The lesson to be learnt is that even the most powerful legal mind in the country can make mistakes in his estate plan because he failed to consult with an expert. Don’t make the same mistake as the person who, for 17 years, sat as the 15th Chief Justice of the United States.

Of course in Malaysia, you have recourse to using the services of the Rockwills Group of companies to fulfil your estate planning needs from writing a will to planning a trust deed. Even to the extent of bereavement care. Rockwills is THE leading specialist company in Malaysia and there is a big in-house legal team to support the business.

I’m proud to have been associated deeply with Rockwills since the company’s inception in 1995. If you are in Malaysia, just drop me an email, won’t you?

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