Revisions, mulligans... and the Magical Notary Fairy

‘Life is change. Anyone who says differently is selling something.’ That is a paraphrased quote from one of my favorite movies that in two short sentences, holds the distilled truth about existence. Life happens – it ebbs and flows and we are along for the ride. The luckiest of us have some agency over those changes where our own lives are concerned – but like it or not, we can’t stop things from changing. Adaptation is key to survival; and resilience in the face of change helps one to weather life’s storms and learn life’s lessons so we can soldier on.

Clients often ask how long their estate plan is ‘good for.’ My response is the same as that constant refrain from my law school professors, “well, it depends.” You have the law – and then there is life. Life happens. Sound familiar? Parents pass away, couples divorce, children stray, families become estranged – alternatively, grandchildren are born, couples marry, and families are reconciled. Life. It happens. To keep up with life’s ebbs and flows, your estate plan should be resilient – but it should also be revisited in the face of such change.

We are living in a DIY world these days. YouTube shows you how to build your own home, do your own plumbing, and school your own children – but are they the most optimal ways to get the job done? I can watch an operation performed but that doesn’t mean I’m the best choice to perform my own surgery. So too, when it comes to an estate plan. The latest Instagram influencer may give you the secrets of how to beat the system and create your own Trust but are you really willing to let ‘Taylor’ tailor the plan that gets you and your family through life’s ups and downs?

I’ll tell you how not to change your plan when life changes direction. You don’t do it yourself. Attorneys often tell their clients – please don’t write on your estate planning documents. This is for a reason. You can’t execute changes to an estate plan by writing on the face of an existing document. You risk voiding that provision altogether, or the document as a whole, and that can result in costly litigation for your family down the road. A judge will not sit with the document in print and your scribbles across it – even if you’ve initialed it – and try to insert her own reasoning in trying to execute the document. The provision you’ve ‘edited’ will be dumped and Idaho’s default laws will be inserted to deal with the contradictory provision. That, folks, is an unintended consequence of DIY-ing your own estate plan.

If you need to revise your documents, have it done correctly. I can’t count the times folks ask if it’s okay to cross out what they want changed and just initial the passage. And my answer is a resounding, NO! That’s not how it works folks. People also think if they do this and have a notary sign off on it, the revision somehow becomes magically legal and enforceable. I want to take this opportunity right here to let you in on a secret – Notary Publics aren’t wizards. They have no magical powers in those stamps of theirs that will instantaneously make a document legal and enforceable upon stamping it. It just doesn’t work that way. A Notary Public’s job is simply to confirm that they witnessed you signing a document. That’s it.

So, the moral of the story – become comfortable with the notion that ‘life is change,’ don’t DIY your own estate plan, and contact your trusted attorney when life gets messy, and you need to take a mulligan. If you need help. I’m here