Online wills are becoming increasingly popular, but you may want to think twice before using one as the final draft of your own last will and testament.
Modern society gets more convenient by the day, thanks in large part to convenient apps and online-based services. Of these, online wills have gained a lot of traction as a way to handle the distribution of your estate without the time and expense of referring to a lawyer.
Unfortunately, the adage “you get what you pay for” holds true, as online wills can result in unintended consequences that may make life harder for your family after you have passed. The “one size fits all” nature of online wills, in addition to the lack of legal assistance from a licensed professional, can provide a recipe for heartbreak and disaster.
At the very least, you should have any document you draft yourself reviewed by a New Mexico online will lawyer. New Mexico Financial & Family Law can view these documents as a baseline, revising and customizing them according to your unique needs.
Get the right will for you — and offer your loved ones greater peace of mind — when you call 505-503-1637 or contact us online to schedule a no-obligation appointment and estate plan review.
The reason online wills have earned a reputation for being quick and cheap is because, realistically, they don’t offer a whole lot.
It’s easy and quick to insert your name into a standard, generic will form using nothing more than responses from a short questionnaire. These documents are also cheap precisely because they do not come with any guidance from a licensed attorney.
Considering that a will is one of the most important documents you’ll create in your life, trusting its completion to a simple auto-fill program without any experienced help can seem more like a gamble than a smart way to save.
Inevitably, the end result of any online will tool you use is going to be a short document — one that is not customized to your unique needs, may not comply with state laws, and may not reflect any long-term goals you have for estate planning.
Working with a New Mexico will attorney, however, instantly provides you with more options and the benefit of professional experience. A knowledgeable attorney can review your estate plans or a current draft of your online will and discuss it in detail in light of your personal goals and unique financial situation.
Many times, clients are shocked to find out that much of their online will needs to be rewritten. Sometimes, we have found that the will is not even valid under New Mexico law, at all! Foreseeable issues with entering the will into probate, vague language, and an inability to refer directly to the client’s unique mix of assets can leave entire sections of the will lacking from an attorney’s standpoint.
When you engage with New Mexico Financial & Family Law, they can provide you with an experienced attorney to review your situation in detail, listen to your goals, and present options for a one-of-a-kind estate plan. We can review any current online will draft you have and use it as a leaping-off point for further exploration of estate plan possibilities.
Creating an online will basically leaves you at the mercy of fill-in-the-blank forms and online services that legally cannot provide any actual support or advice. Any legal assistance you do receive is rendered through a third-party vendor, making you pay extra to talk to an attorney — one who may not have even practiced estate planning or probate law for very long.
AI-generated wills can create even worse problems. Generative AI has a tendency to “hallucinate” information, especially in technical fields like the law.
Using a tool like Chat GPT to write your will could lead to harmful mistakes, which can be hard to catch unless the document is thoroughly reviewed by an attorney.
All of these qualities increase the chances that you will be left unsatisfied with the online will you create — or, at the very least, your surviving beneficiaries will be unsatisfied when they realize that the document they’re using to handle your estate has some major potential flaws.
To break it down more precisely, an online will can create problems for you and your estate for any (or all) of the following reasons:
Online will creation tools start from generic forms. The platform decides on what types of forms to use after consulting with not only legal experts but also development teams, sales teams, and other parties.
The products you get out of the platform are, therefore, a compromise between the recommendations of attorneys, sales teams hungry to see revenues, and operations teams wanting the least amount of overhead possible for the site.
Online wills also represent a compromise between the regions where the highest concentrations of the platform’s customers live. That means that the language governing your will is likely to skew more closely to heavily populated areas like California, New York, and Texas than a less-populated state like New Mexico.
Many online will creation tools don’t even ask what state you live in, and when they do, the end result may be just one or two additional clauses to increase the appearance of compliance.
Know that every state has small differences in the laws affecting wills, estates, and probate. While a single will could, in theory, be entered into probate in all 50 states with just a few modifications, these modifications all add up when it comes to how effective your will is at realizing your wishes for your estate.
To provide a significant example, New Mexico is just one of nine states in the country that has community property laws. These laws mandate that all property obtained and investments made during a marriage are considered the property of both spouses, with very limited exceptions (see NM Stat § 40-3-8).
If your online will promised marital community property to a beneficiary, then the bequest could face challenges. In New Mexico, if community property is not addressed in a will, the surviving spouse receives it all as a default. The statute provides that only one spouses half of the community property can be distributed in a will.
Complications like these could easily lead to upset beneficiaries and lawsuits against the estate, so tread carefully when writing a will, and consult with a New Mexico online will lawyer who can advise you about the best courses of action to take.
Online wills usually start off with a cheaper “base” product price, and then that price increases as more-complicated arrangements are made.
For example, a simple will that gifts all property to the surviving spouse, save for a few personal possessions, can act as the baseline version of an online will. However, if the will creator (called a testator) decides to make more complicated arrangements, then they are going to pay extra.
Even at the highest tiers, though, online wills lack the capacity for customization compared to a will created with the direct help of an attorney.
If you have a complex family, such as one that resulted from multiple remarriages involving multiple sets of children, then you may be dissatisfied with even the most expensive version of an online will. The same result can hold true if you have complicated asset situations, including properties owned jointly with other family members or closely held business interests you want to pass on to the next generation.
A one-size-fits-all will can end up fitting everyone poorly in the end.
Consulting with a New Mexico online will lawyer is especially recommended if you have the following:
Your attorney will go over your unique situation in detail and craft a one-of-a-kind will that comprehensively addresses all of your concerns.
Just about every will relies to some degree on stock legal clauses, known as “boilerplate.” In fact, many of the most common clauses seen in modern wills can be traced back to English laws from the 17th century.
The problem with online wills is that they are usually more reluctant to review, revise, and dispose of boilerplate on a regular basis.
This type of language falls out of favor all the time with estate planning and probate attorneys, and for very valid reasons. Perhaps a commonly used clause was defeated in a landmark court case, or maybe a newer phrasing has come into fashion because it’s easier to interpret.
Many online will creation platforms take risks by using the same boilerplate for years at a time. Having a New Mexico online will attorney review the document you create provides opportunities to update these passages or rewrite them.
These revisions can increase the likelihood that your will is going to be understood and carried out as you intended.
Ambiguity is quite possibly the biggest risk when creating an online will.
Your will should be carefully drafted, using clear and precise language, with reference to your actual financial and family situation.
A generic will form could, for example, refer to “family property” in a way that is vague and confusing. When it comes time to interpret the document in court, the vague wording could lead to conflicting interpretations — and subsequent legal disputes.
Consider that one professional trustee and executor wrote that, as a result of her experiences, she has “learned that the documents which provide me with detailed instructions are critical to avoid court involvement, to reduce administrative confusion, and to know when our job is done.”
This level of clarity is easier to come by when a will was custom-created and makes clear references to assets in a specific and recognizable way.
Have you ever gotten a notice that your private information was compromised during an online security breach? If not, consider yourself lucky.
A recent U.S. News and World Report survey found that 44% of respondents had their private information exposed during a data breach on multiple occasions in their lives.
Now, imagine that instead of an email address being exposed, it was the entire contents of your estate. Your will may even contain sensitive information about where titles to a home are kept or passwords for your most important online accounts.
Making matters worse, using an online will creation service can leave you without attorney-client privilege to protect you. Companies could potentially be forced to reveal private information about you as a result of a lawsuit — or even a need to demonstrate product performance to investors.
Online will creation tools are allowed to exist because they only provide access to forms. They explicitly do not provide legal advice or other professional skills-based services.
When you use the site, you are essentially acting as your own attorney. Because of this status, the site itself can’t offer legal advice or even guarantee that its products will hold up in court.
Making matters worse, if you do encounter issues, you may not have much ground to sue. Users typically enter into a forced arbitration agreement, which means they have no right to a jury trial and likely have to submit their case in a jurisdiction chosen by the service provider.
It bears repeating: a DIY will creation tool cannot guarantee their products will hold up in court. Many customers find out the hard way.
In a 2010 case from California, the executor of an estate sued one online will creation platform when documents created on the site were executed improperly. A trust that was supposed to be funded could not be created until legal intervention was used to remedy the issues.
In the end, an attempt to save a few hundred dollars ended up costing significantly more during probate.
The class action lawsuit against the will creation platform was eventually settled without the company admitting any wrongdoing.
Our clients love our service because New Mexico Financial & Family Law provides so much more than just will creation services. We can help you keep your will up-to-date with any life or financial changes while also keeping it compliant with the most recent state and federal laws.
You get the opportunity to build a relationship with a knowledgeable and experienced attorney, one who can offer assistance any time you need.
With our New Mexico online will attorneys’ help, you can develop a comprehensive estate plan. Such a plan can include not only a will but other important powers, as well.
Depending on your situation, you may want to draft powers of attorney documents, form a trust, or create supporting documents for important matters like guardianship.
When you are ready to get experienced and personalized help — rather than just a fill-it-yourself form — we are a phone call away. Schedule a no-obligation consultation and estate plan review with a trusted New Mexico online will law firm today when you call us at 505-503-1637 or contact us online.
CallCall now to schedule your consultation 505.503.1637
Office