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Wills

2vthokies2vthokies
in D.C. Area Babies

At the risk of being chided, I will confess that we do not have a will.  DD1 is three, so there really is no excuse.  Getting one is my number one goal this year. So who's done a will?  Did you just use a software/go online?  If so, what did you use?  If you used an attorny, would you mind sharing the process with me (and approximate cost)?  Anyone use an attorny in the Sterling/Ashburn area?  Feel free to PM me if you don't want to share the info online.  If it makes a difference, we own a home, have retirement plans, etc. Thanks!

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Re: Wills

  • ArtslvrArtslvr

    No chiding here - I have a brother with a ten year old who still hasn't made a will (though tells me that his daughter would live with me if he and his wife passed - but his wife has a family who would probably not like that - I wish he'd just DO it already).

    We used an estate planning lawyer in Vienna.  I don't highly recomend them only because the lady who we originally worked with to create the will, the power of attorney, etc. was so nice back when we had it done after having my (almost) five year old daughter.  Since then, though, we've gone back to their offices twice, to add our other two kids to the documents and make minor changes, and the people there are not that nice.  Not awful, just not nice enough for me to highly recommend.

    I think it was $1200 or $1500 to start, and every time we changed something it was maybe $300 or so.  We had no confidence whatsoever to do it on-line or by ourselves.  We also know laws can very by state, so we we specifically wanted a VA lawyer.

    OK I just grabbed our notebook to let you know what we had done....we each have a will (with two codicils updating the wills with each child, and at one point we reassigned who gets our kids if we die...), Durable Power of Attorney, and Advanced Medical Directives.

    Wife, Musician, Fed, WW-er, and Mom of three little kids - not necessarily in that order.
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  • kafunderkafunder member

    No chiding here either. DH and I went to an attorney in Old Town and started the whole process last summer. The attorney was pretty good and sent us the documents and we went back and forth on them a few times, but now DH and I have just been sitting on the documents in our inboxes for about months. We just can't seem to "pull the plug (pun intended)" on signing the documents, which we know is horrible. The guardian part is the toughest.

    We are paying $1,800 for two Living Trusts, Durable Powers of Attorney, and Advanced Medical Directives. After seeing the drafts of the docs, it makes you think you could have done it yourself, but in reality, I wouldn't have trusted anything we did (and given we can't even muster the motivation to review docs that some prepared for us, I'm not sure we would have ever done it on our own).

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  • mac_249mac_249

    We just did this last year and used Carrie Tipton of the Arbor Law Firm.  She was great.  We met with her once to start things off and once at the end for the signing and everything else was done over e-mail.  She charges a flat rate of $950 and we got 2 wills, which include guardianship and trustee provisions, and which establish a trust for young beneficiaries if necessary; 2 durable powers of attorney for finances; and 2 durable powers of attorney for health care, with advance medical directives (aka a living will) included if you wanted.  I'd highly recommend her.  

    https://www.arborlawfirm.com/  

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  • QueSrahQueSrah member
    We saw an attorney (no where near Sterling, so I won't bother naming names) and it was really helpful to have someone to talk to other than a website to get specific answers to some oddball questions.  We met with her to discuss our preferences, she put together draft wills, trusts, powers of attorney and medical directives, and then we set up a second meeting to go through the drafts and work out last details.  We had a third meeting to sign all the documents and discuss what we would need to follow up on later.
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  • SofkaSofka

    we haven't done it either, I have a name a friend recommended, can send it to you but I haven't met w/ the attorney myself

    such a hard hard decision

     

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  • 2vthokies2vthokies
    Looks like an attorny is the way to go.  I will check out some of your recs, so thank you. Sofya - send me the info you have (if you don't mind).
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  • VARedheadVARedhead

    We are literally just going through this process now, too, and in fact will be reviewing the drafts this weekend. We used a friend-of-a friend who just does this on the side, and is in MD, so probably not worth giving you the info (though he was cheap!).

    We got a will for each of us (DH and I), durable power of attorney for each of us, and the VA Advance Directive for Health Care for each of us.

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  • lylahlovelylahlove member
    Just wanted to throw this out there - dh works for a large company (Booz Allen) and they covered our will 100%, we just had to go through one of their attorneys. It was a piece of cake so you may want to check if your employer covers it. 
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    growing a foosa
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  • katyandjoshkatyandjosh
    We used Carrie Tipton (Virginia) too! She is a joy to work with, makes the process painless and easy and her pricing is very reasonable! And she is a mobile attorney, so she comes to you.
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