Yes! You have an estate! It sounds fancy, but an estate plan is just a plan to care for the people you want in your life with whatever assets you have. We happily serve, with equal respect, clients with relatively small to very high net worth estates and with very simple to very complex family circumstances. Regardless of what you have, you need an estate plan to legally appoint people you trust to take care of everything if there is ever a time when you can’t, and to decide what should happen with all your stuff after you die. At the very least, every legal adult needs a core estate plan (Will, Power of Attorney, Health Care Proxy).

If you don’t have an estate plan, the state has a one-size-fits-all plan for you, your family, and your assets.  First, your loved ones will have to gather all your financial details to submit to the Family and Probate Court.  Then a Judge will decide who should be in charge of your assets, who should be legal guardian of your children if they are minors, and who should get all of your assets when.

Your loved ones can try to do this all themselves, but it is a lot of very detailed and time-consuming work, especially when people are busy trying to grieve a loss. They can hire a lawyer to help them, but the costs are often greater than if you had had a comprehensive, detailed, organized estate plan in place.

Those with larger estates can better afford to spend money on estate administration fees as the remaining assets will still be sufficient to provide comfort or a solid foundation for their loved ones.  Those with smaller estates have more to lose by not having their affairs in order to protect and provide for their loved ones.

Q:  What are reasonable legal fees for Wills, Trusts, and Estate Plans in Massachusetts?

A:  It depends!

Factors that affect the reasonableness of the legal fees for a Massachusetts Will, Trust, or Estate Plan include:

• the type and scope of estate plan
  • fees will differ considerably for a very simple Will-based plan with no asset protection vs. a basic Probate-avoidance trust with no tax planning, vs. a Revocable Living Trust with marital deduction and bypass or credit shelter estate tax planning vs. a complex estate plan with multiple types of trusts or other entities
• the quality and comprehensiveness of the legal documents
  • some lawyers (and most DIY software options to make your Will or Trust quickly online) stop at the bare bones basics, asking the lease questions necessary and churning out a Will, Health Care Proxy, and Power of Attorney (or that plus a Trust)
  • our plans go much farther to include the practical planning that makes the difference when it matters most
• the services included or not depending on the type of planning option and attorney you choose, such as:
  • guidance about how to align your assets with your legal documents through beneficiary designation or pay on death designations or account retitling or registration and trust funding
  • assistance with real estate transfer documents, including Deeds, Declarations of Homestead, and the like
  • collaboration with your other professional advisors, including your financial advisor or wealth manager, life insurance agent, tax accountant or CPA, family law attorney, business attorney, or others
• geography and cost of living
  • average fees nationally don’t tend to serve as a good basis for comparison
  •  
• the education, training, and practical and professional experience and personal abilities of the attorney and the law firm’s supporting team
  • estate planning is a highly complex area of the law that requires sustained focus and ongoing continuing legal education and professional development
    • the law has become increasingly specialized over time and this area of the law really does not lend itself well to general practice
    • do not leave the most important matters in your life in the hands of someone who does not practice almost exclusively or exclusively in estate planning and probate law
      • those of us who have had to administer estates after death of a loved one and do this work professionally as we do have a special appreciation for the practical aspects of drafting estate plans to make sure they work as intended!
  • at DGVE law, unlike the trend to use remote, contract employees, our team lives locally and works collaboratively on site in our offices
    • when you call and when you visit you will speak with and see the same people who are handling your confidential information, preparing your estate plan, answering your questions, and supporting your surviving loved ones when they need our help

How do DGVE law’s professional legal fees compare locally?

Ours are neither the highest nor the lowest around us here in Massachusetts.

We are also not hiding anything by advertising lower entry level fees with lots of hidden fees for additional options or upselling of services. We believe in being honest and transparent with you from the outset of our working relationship.

Our fees are carefully calculated based on a combination of the factors above and all are designed to provide you the best client service and highest quality legal work.

We have many years of practical, professional experience to know what it will take for our team to complete your estate plan, so once we determine the type of plan you desire, we are able to set the appropriate flat fee to accomplish that scope of legal services for you.

To ensure transparency, as you proceed with your estate plan design, if choices you make might affect your fee, we alert you to that up front so you can make an informed decision before proceeding to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

We also advice you how to avoid unnecessary, additional fees for additional work.

We discuss and agree to all flat fees and billing policies clearly up front before we begin work. 

We completely understand the necessary investments of your time and money to get your estate plan in place. To help make it easier and avoid unnecessary delays, we accept credit card payments, and we offer financing options.

Make sure you compare apples to apples, not apples to pineapples. See: Comprehensive or Legacy Nesting™️ Estate Planning

We provide our clients with guidance about how to follow our carefully designed processes to stay within the set flat fees to which we agree up front and avoid any unnecessary, additional legal fees for increasing the scope of services required to complete the work.

For examples, by:

• reviewing all correspondence we send you so you know what to expect and how to prepare for each step of the process
• completing your intake or plan design worksheets as thoroughly and accurately as possible
• keeping scheduled appointments
• adhering to appointment start and end times
• responding promptly to our requests for additional information or to confirm details regarding your plan design choices, ensuring accuracy of the information you provide us, &
• following directions about how to provide us requested information

you will help keep the process of completing your estate plan moving along smoothly, avoiding both unnecessary delays and any additional costs to provide you with the legal services necessary to complete your estate plan.

We offer a Free Informational and Intake Call with a member of our team to:

• answer your general questions
  • we cannot give you specific legal advice before you are a client
  • if we are not the best law firm to assist you with your matter we will try to make a referral for you if we can
• decide if it would be a good fit for us to work together
• help you decide whether our Comprehensive Estate Planning Process or  one of our Legacy Nesting™️ estate plan options is right for you
• explain how it works and what you can expect
• help you get started right away so you can get your new or updated estate plan in place as quickly as possible

You probably have a lot more than you think. Most people, especially younger families just filling their nests with mortgages and high child care related costs, tend to focus on cash sitting in a bank account or readily accessible in an investment account. They forget to consider the value of all the other assets they have that would be available for their loved ones, including life insurance policy proceeds, retirement accounts, and even real estate sale proceeds. A comprehensive estate plan isn’t just for the very wealthy. Every legal adult needs a right-sized estate plan to make legal plans for themselves, their families, and their assets, no matter what happens or when.

You absolutely do not need to make all the decisions in advance before you get started! That’s why we’re here, to provide you with legal counseling and advice to help you know how to make the best decisions for you and your family. In fact, based on many years of practical experience guiding thousands of others through this process, we actually recommend that you do not try to figure out all the details first.  In our experience, you will often end up changing your mind once you have a little more decision to help you choose. Our goal is to educate you enough for you to make the best possible decisions for your own family based on your own finances. The only decision you need to make now is to get started. Contact us now and take that first step toward enjoying genuine peace of mind.

A solid estate plan combines financial, legal, and possibly tax planning. Depending on your unique circumstances and planning goals, we can counsel and advise you about relevant options to make sure your family is as financially secure as possible and help you leave them a legacy, instead of a financial and practical mess.  

There are significant practical and tax-related considerations to benefitting charities and leaving an impactful legacy. There are also potential pitfalls and traps for the unwary when it comes to charitable giving. You will want to discuss your unique planning goals and charitable intentions with our attorney to receive specific legal counseling and advice to help you determine the best ways and times to give money or other assets to charity.

For personalized legal counseling and specific advice, you will want to meet with our lawyer online or in the office to discuss your concerns, evaluate your risks, learn about different options to try to protect against those, and determine which are best suited to your specific circumstances.

Although it is a wonderful feeling to complete your estate plan, it is definitely not a once in a lifetime, set it and forget it task. Your estate plan should not remain locked away somewhere completely out of sight or largely forgotten.  It is, after all, the plan for your family and finances and you need to make sure it keeps up with you over time.

Annual Reviews on Your Own

We recommend you “dust off” and review your estate plan on your own at least once a year, and whenever your family and financial situations change during your lifetime. To make that easier for you, we provide you with a simplified summary and sometimes a diagram of your plan so you don’t have to wade through hundreds of pages of legal documents just to review the basics. You can always look back at the plan design information you provided to us as well, but keep in mind that any last minute changes you made may not be reflected there so look at your actual legal documents in your physical Estate Planning Portfolio or in the electronic replica we provided you of the same.

3 Year Reviews with Us

Attorneys differ on their advice about this, but based on our personal, practical, and professional experience, we strongly recommend you schedule a Review Meeting with us, online or in the office, at least every 3 years to make sure that your estate plan remains current, reflecting your wishes and adapting as necessary to changes in the laws or related to your health, family, or finances.

When we meet, we will help you identify any changes that may require updates to your estate plan.  We can help you make sure everything remains organized, current, accessible, and ready to use in practice whenever necessary. At a minimum, you want to be sure your financial, General Durable Power of Attorney remains current so that banks and others will honor those legal documents when necessary without excessive concern that you signed the documents too long ago to rely on them comfortably. You will also want to ensure that your emergency contacts for your health care agents and guardians of your minor children are readily accessible anywhere, anytime, through current legal documents securely stored and easily retrievable right from your wallet cards.

Minor changes generally involve minor legal fees. More significant updates and changes may involve more significant fees, but we discount fees for our clients with whom we have an existing relationship and background information and legal documents to use as a starting point.

To schedule your Review Meeting, contact us by web chat, text or call to 781-740-0848 or email to info@dgvelaw.com

You can always contact us for assistance! Generally, to avoid confusion, provide you with the best service, and ensure your wishes are properly addressed, it is best to start with a Review Meeting to discuss all the circumstances and options for updating your estate plan. 

To schedule your Review Meeting, contact us by web chat, text or call to 781-740-0848 or email to info@dgvelaw.com

Absolutely! As long as you have capacity and are alive & well enough to do so, you can always amend your estate plan.  However, adding in tax planning is not a minor amendment. That would require significant revisions to your legal documents.  We would advise a comprehensive Restatement of your trust to avoid confusion and practical difficulties with administration.  The fees for that type of change to your estate plan would more significant. Therefore, if you are concerned about tax planning now, it would likely be better for you practically and financially to pursue more comprehensive planning initially by going through our comprehensive, 3 Meeting Process instead. We accept credit card payments and offer the opportunity for financing so you can choose the type of plan that best serves your family now with certainty regarding the fees and the ability to pay the cost of your investment however works best for you.

As you work through your estate plan design, if you determine that it is in your best interests to proceed with our Comprehensive 3 Meeting Estate Planning Process instead, we can always amend our Engagement Agreement to reflect that change in process and in fees. We would apply the fees you already paid as a credit toward your total flat fee once we determined and agreed to that revised scope of services and total flat fee. Contact us any time for assistance.