In our estate planning practice, we are frequently asked by our clients where they should maintain their original estate planning documents. In my opinion, the place to keep your original Last Will and Testament, Power of Attorney, Health Care Power of Attorney, Trust, and Living Will is with your lawyer. There are a number of reasons why this is advisable. This article attempts to address some of the major considerations for placing your estate planning documents with your attorney.
If you choose to keep the Will in a safe place at your home, you face a number of possible risks that could frustrate the purpose of your Will or otherwise impede the appropriate distribution under the Will or effectuate other documents related to your healthcare directives. For instance, if your Will is different from the distribution plan written for you by the Florida Legislature under the laws relating to intestate (meaning without a Will) succession, then you run the risk of an individual (who might be receiving less under your Will than they would receive under intestate succession) destroying the Will, thereby creating the possibility of argument by the beneficiaries that the previously executed Will was actually revoked by the deceased individual by the physical act of destroying the original.
Another potential difficulty in keeping the estate planning documents at your home is if the documents include an original Power of Attorney, the Power of Attorney could be misused by the Attorney-in-Fact to effectuate advance planning with respect to any estate planning or even divorce. By keeping the Power of Attorney at the law offices, it is less likely that a Power of Attorney could be misused by the person given authority under that Power of Attorney.
The third reason to keep your estate planning documents with your attorney is that sometimes situations occur outside your living area that might require a transmittal of estate planning documents. For instance, let us suppose that you are injured in an automobile accident while visiting your daughter in Nebraska. It might be necessary for a Health Care Power of Attorney, Power of Attorney or Living Will to be used at the hospital in Nebraska. A simple phone call to your lawyer results in those documents being faxed to the hospital so that your plans and interests can be protected and effectuated.
Some people have the idea that these important documents should be placed in a safe deposit box owned by the client. As discussed above, one of the difficulties with having the documents in your safe deposit box is that if you were injured outside of Florida and you were not available to access the safe deposit box, your important documents may not be available when they are urgently needed. Also, if you place the original Will in a safe deposit box, it is possible that it would be necessary upon your death to obtain a court order to get access to the estate planning documents. This would entail substantial legal expense, and perhaps, the expense of actually drilling out the lock on the safe deposit box if the key cannot be found.
Original documents are extremely important. In order to probate a Will, the court will typically require the production of the original Will. Unlike some states, Florida does not allow for the filing of original Wills before death. Safe deposit boxes can be difficult to access after death and, even after the death, what protection is there from the person entering the box? Additionally, there is a risk from an unscrupulous heir that may choose to destroy a document that does not serve their interest.
Finally, this issue cannot be properly addressed without talking about the tremendous risk associated with a Power of Attorney. A Power of Attorney can be used by any individual that might be designated thereunder to transfer assets in such a way that would effectuate pre-divorce planning or pre-death planning that would frustrate the estate plan of the client. The procedure followed at the Coleman Law Firm is that the Power of Attorney is not generally provided to the client. Rather, a letter is prepared by our law firm indicating in what circumstances a Power of Attorney will be released to the designated Attorney-in-Fact so that there will be some degree of protection that the Power of Attorney will not be misused to address such issues as the Attorney-in-Fact’s financial difficulties or to otherwise frustrate the intent set forth in the Last Will and Testament of our client.
Coleman Law Firm works to document the client’s intent with respect to the distribution of their wealth and their healthcare decisions. It is critical that the documents prepared by our law firm be effective and enforceable at the time of the death or disability of our client.
© Jeffrey P. Coleman P.A. 2011
