We should have already taken care of this, but DH and I conquered life insurance last year and this year I want to make sure we get our will in place. I e-mailed a friend of a friend who is an attorney and he told me that they have a bunch of packages, but a basic will, power of attorney, and health care documents and directives costs $499 to draft.
Is this a good deal? Or is there some way to draw the documents up yourself? How do you choose an executor? I've heard of executors being attorneys or being a trusted family member, I assume having an attorney act as executor means part of your estate goes to paying them?
We live in Washington State, have two kids, would leave all our estate to the kids and give custody to my sister. Pretty simple I think, but I don't really know where to start, if we need a POA or health care documents and directives, etc. All advice appreciated!
Since you have small children, I suggest you bite the bullet, hire the lawyer and KNOW that it's all done right. When we had our wills drawn up (not too long ago), it was $250 for the two of us. That covered six documents: For each of us, a medical power of attorney, a financial power of attorney, and a will.
We had it done through our Credit Union. It was kind of lucky: We'd been talking about the need for more than the online forms we'd previously drawn up ... and one day I went into the Credit Union and saw a sign saying that they offer that type of service ... I asked questions, and it was a great deal. The guy who helped us with our initial interview brought up a number of issues we hadn't considered, and then we had about a month to agree between the two of us before we met with the actual lawyer. We feel like our paperwork is now solid. It covers both of us, our children, our assets ... we will probably one day adjust it to include grandchildren, but we wouldn't NEED to re-do the will unless one of us died and the other remarried.
One problem I note in your question: You say you'd leave your assets to your children and the care of the children to your sister. Unless she's very wealthy, I'd think your sister would need your assets to provide care for the children over the years. I don't think it's fair to ask your sister to rearrange her life to care for your children, using her own funds to do so, and then when they turn 18 the kids will receive all your assets.
This is something I've thought about a good bit because I'm the "back up guardian" for three children. Of course, it's unlikely that my family would be so unfortunate as to lose FOUR healthy adults (two sets of parents, these three aren't all siblings), leaving me to raise the three children ... but, if it were to happen, I'd be able to put food on the table and clothes on their backs ... but the youngest of these children is only four years old, so
I could potentially spend more years raising her than her parents have ... and then there's three sets of braces, help with three first cars, and then college,
not to mention that one of the boys has some special medical needs, and he will likely need help/guidance well into adulthood -- realistically, if he became my responsibility, I'd have to name someone younger than me to "carry on" looking after him. Before I agreed to this deal, I asked that some life insurance and the sale of their houses would come to me -- not to line my own pockets, but so I'd be able to comfortably care for the kids. Of course, I'd have some Social Security until they turned 18.
As I said, I've thought about this: If this were to happen, I would keep good records so no one could ever accuse me of stealing from the children, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the parents would leave me some financial help.