Never used them before. Need a will and Living Will/ Healthcare Proxy. Are these documents as binding as I am led to believe they are, at least in NY State? Anyone here used Legal Zoom?
Don’t want to waste time, but quite interested in doing this in a thorough manner.
Thoughts?
I would recommend using the forms directly from the New York State Health Department website. I expect that those are the forms that Legal Zoom uses as their base, and there is probably no need to pay for them.
The health care proxy is designed to be easy to use and simple to execute (unlike, for example, a last will and testament, which has lots of nitpicky details on how it has to be signed and witnessed).
Good luck.
If you want it done right, hire a lawyer licensed in the appropriate jurisdiction. Otherwise, you’re gambling with documents that may or may not work the way you want them to work.
The hospitals here have the forms and will help you fill them out. They’re the standard, state-approved form.
That will probably work for a “living will”, but actual wills are considerably more difficult/particular. In my area, many lawyers will do a “living will” as part of doing a regular will. The standardized forms for a “living will” don’t have a lot of room for complicated instructions in some scenarios.
Previous thread: “OK, so does Legal Zoom suck or what?”.
The point I made in that thread is that you shouldn’t be asking people who used Legal Zoom for their will how it worked, because they don’t know. It’s the heirs of someone who used Legal Zoom who can tell you if it worked or not. Ease of use by the testator does not necessarily equal a good final product for probate.
A bit dated but still pertinent IMHO…
Do all states have easy to use forms available at hospitals or on the web? Interested in Arizona particularly.
Here’s the Arizona Attorney General’s “Life Care Planning” website with links to information package and forms to fill out.
I think that most states have forms and instructions on the web. Search for “[name of state] living will health care proxy,” and look for a website from that state’s Attorney General or Department of Health.
I also think that most hospitals have forms available and, in my experience, encourage patients to use them. In the event that a patient becomes unable to control his or her health care decisions, I think hospitals much prefer to have a written directive that they can rely on to identify who will be making the decisions.
They probably are binding. It’s really easy to make a binding legal document. The problem isn’t in making them binding; the problem is in making them do what you want them to do. If you take a piece of paper and write on it “After I’m gone I want Bobby to get all my stuff”, and sign it, and that’s the only will you have, then when you die, Bobby will indeed inherit your stuff. But the lawyers will still argue about which Bobby you meant, and whether the funds in your bank account, or your family farm, count as “stuff”, and a bunch of other such details that I, not being a lawyer, am not conversant with. A will written up with the help of a lawyer will include all of those details, leaving much less to be argued about messily after your death.