The Cost of Preparing Wills - A Little "Give and Take"
With over 50% of Canadians and 70% of Americans who do not have wills, the cost of preparing a will (and a Power of Attorney) needs to be considered. I must confess I have never personally understood the pricing arrangement with will drafting in Canada.
In short, it is a service provided by lawyers that is often substantially undercharged for and why it is so many people do not take advantage of this in the marketplace is still a mystery to me.
Certainly in Toronto, a husband and wife can still get Powers of Attorney and wills done for under $1,000 together.
Historically, it has been the case that a lawyer will charge less for the preparation of the will knowing (and hoping) that he or she will receive the estate administration work on the death of the client.
However, in our more complicated and fast-moving world, there is simply no guarantee that a lawyer will be part of the process at the end of the day. Even if a lawyer does get lucky and does get the file for the estate administration, with the advent of jointly held property, multiple wills and more sophisticated estate planning, the necessity for a lawyer after that, while important, is not nearly as substantial.
In any event, the likelihood of a lawyer getting both ends of the file, namely the will drafting and the estate administration, is statistically low and, as such, we need to better understand the pricing at the front end of the process when the will is prepared.
I think the public also needs to know why the pricing is where it is. Meaning, why do we need to even charge $1,000 (at a minimum)? The answer is simple in that there is no such thing as a simple will.
If you are being led to believe that your will is simple, then consider the whole will drawing process. First of all, a lawyer is obliged to obtain all of the relevant asset information, to determine whether or not his or her client has the necessary capacity to draw the will and, amongst other things, determine if the client is being pressured into making the will as he or she is being instructed.
In addition to the straightforward legal obligations, a lawyer needs to provide a full circle of advice. My friend and colleague Anne Werker describes this process as taking instructions and giving back advice in the context of those instructions. A true "give and take" from the client's perspective.
If the client wants cheaper service and does not want the second half of the process undertaken by a lawyer, then the client has to accept the fact that a full and complete analysis of the estate planning simply has not been considered.
Don't get me wrong; I am not suggesting that every client needs to undertake an extensive estate planning analysis; rather, the client needs to at least give his or her own views and then allow the lawyer to use his or her own expertise to dovetail the client information into advice, which ultimately ends up in the form of a will.
Even if the will ends up looking boilerplate, it is only because the lawyer has considered all of the options as opposed to simply being an intake information officer who prints up a standard form will.
For a lawyer to properly receive information (which involves time to take in the information from the client), consider that information in the context of his or her own legal expertise, and then produce a flawless legal document that will speak forever, the pricing of such services seems to be particularly reasonable and, personally, I think needs to go up substantially.
In my experience, if you are being charged a fair rate for wills and Powers of Attorney, then you are getting good advice. The cheaper the will, almost always the cheaper the advice.
So make sure you always look to give and to receive when you are making your estate plan. Finally, another important element to the whole estate planning process, which you need to pay for, is the way the lawyer considers the problems that may get created to allow for a family fight after your death, and there are lots of techniques available to the client and to the legal profession to assist you in preventing such a battle over your assets when you die. My colleagues and friends, Les Kotzer and Barry Fish, have written an excellent book on this topic: The Family Fight Planning to Avoid It . I have also written a book on this topic, Advising Families on Succession Planning: The High Price of Not Talking. As I said in my inaugural blog, the process of avoiding the family fight will be an important subtopic of my blog over time.
Have a great day ! Suzana and Ian --------
