Oregon Estate Planning Blog

Beware of who is advising legal self-help!

Sorry if you received the earlier accidental posting!  I wasn't done and it was a mistake!

Anyway, I mentioned in a previous post that you should beware when hearing advice that legal self-help is a good idea.  An article on realsimple.com illustrates the point.  A key employee for NOLO suggests that legal self-help is OK: "You can often handle the tasks involved in buying or selling real estate just with the help of other professionals traditionally involved in the process."  Well why not?  NOLO sells legal self-help materials!  The problem with this is that these professionals are not licensed to practice law.  So while they can give you advice on buying and selling real estate, they cannot advise you on any laws that might apply to ownership, land use, taxes, and other areas of law.  If they did give you legal advice, you couldn't rely on it, and you'd have no recourse if you got bad advice.  I believe it is a much better idea to pay a feww hundred to a few thousand dollars to get the advice of an attorney that you can rely upon to be current with applicable laws.  You can probably factor the cost into your mortgage application.

A good rule to live by is to always see who is advising what, and ask yourself what is in it for them.  Why would someone who sells DIY legal kits say that you don't need a lawyer?  For that matter, why would a lawyer say that you DO need a lawyer?  Can they justify what they are saying, despite the apparent self-interest?

I've been reading that there are also certain scams being pulled in the estate planning discounts world.  You might remember that I posted a story about a job my husband used to do until her realized he was working for a company that was scamming people into buying wills and trusts.  Two weeks after my husband quit, the Feds came and shut the place down.  It looks like these companies shut down and then reopen under new names.  So, just beware if you get a phone call asking if you have a will or a trust.

The point of this post is that you should be proactive and safe when it comes to legal matters.  Attorneys get a bad rap, but we are held to high ethical standards and we take them seriously.  We are required to carry malpractice insurance, and there is definite recourse for clients if something goes wrong.  This is not true for cheaper ways of dealing with legal matters.

And when it comes to your estate, you really don't want to leave it to your loved ones to find out that you have a plan that doesn't work, and that there is no recourse because you took the advice of a non-lawyer or used a DIY kit.

To your family's health & prosperity,

Candice

Wow, Credit Card Industry! Really?

From a Debt Law Network article:  "American Express cut Mr. [Kevin] Johnson’s credit limit citing 'the poor repayment history' of other American Express customers who shopped at stores where Mr. Johnson shopped."  The stores Mr. Johnson shopped at were Amamzon.com, Ruby Tuesday, Walmart, Starbucks, and FedEx.

This raises the question of whether this constitutes "redlining."  According to Wikipedia, redlining is the practice of denying or increasing the cost of services to residents in what are often racially determined areas.

The credit industry denies that this is redlining, but a recent study comparing consumers with similar credit histories living in different types of neighborhoods found that it is harder to get credit if you live in a minority neighborhood and that the credit amount extended is generally lower to those in minority neighborhoods.

So, what do YOU think?  Are the credit card companies redlining?

Warning about Powers of Attorney

When you give someone "Power of Attorney," it is a powerful tool that can be used to protect your assets, but in the wrong hands, it can also be an incentive to steal.  That is why the AARP is pushing for states to adopt legislation making greedy agents liable for damages that occur when they abuse their power.

My advice is:

1) Do not give someone Power of Attorney unless you completely trust them;

2) Consult an attorney to help you draft the document so that it protects your interests; and

3) Keep most of your assets in a Revocable Living Trust with a successor Trustee named, so that the person holding Power of Attorney only deals with small accounts.

An Unbelievable Story

Boy, do I have a story for you!  I learned something new about my husband today and about scams surrounding estate planning.  I have long thought that DIY planning materials are a scam, but I did not really know the extent to which people prey on the elderly or others who need to plan their estates.

My husband, bless his heart, has had many, many, many jobs since he was 14 years old.  He's a writer, and he's always looking for opportunities to take weird jobs that he can write about.  Yes, I know it's strange. 

He told me about one job he had, and I can't believe this is the first I'm hearing of it, especially considering my career choice!  He used to work for a call center that called elderly people and asked them if they had wills or not, then convinced them to give their credit card numbers to secure home appointments with attorneys who supposedly were going to come and prepare wills for them!  Of course, this is all my husband was privy to, but he's fairly certain that it was all a scam and that the appointments never happened, and so when he realized this, he quit.

Two weeks later, the Feds came in and shut down the place!

I am so tired of hearing about abuse of the elderly.  As a society, we should be honoring our elderly, looking to them for our tradition and culture.  How sad that we've become a society that preys on one our greatest resources.  I had the pleasure recently at our family reunion of hearing my Great Aunt Ida tell wonderfully rich stories about my family.  Her stories gave me so much hope as we're entering these tough economic times.  She and her brothers and sisters (there were 14 of them!) lived through the Great Depression and came out strong.  Who better to impart wisdom on us now than the elderly who have already been through tough economic times?