Estate Planning Lessons from the Roosevelt Bridge

Like many of you, I found the news that the Roosevelt bridge is “at risk of an imminent collapse,” to be quite alarming. It is my hope that the issue is a simple fix and that the comment was simply a precautionary overstatement. The bridge was built in 1996 and it is inspected every two years.  

Upon arriving at work, I found myself thinking of clients that I have interacted with that have either failed to plan or neglected to follow through with their estate planning. In the end, I have found that the families of these individuals end up dealing with large cracks or estates that are on the verge of an imminent collapse. This lack of estate planning results in increased attorney’s fees and court costs, all of which could typically be avoided at minimal expense by simply retaining an attorney from the beginning.  

In the past year, I can recall at least three separate occasions when an individual prepared a deed without the assistance of an attorney, which resulted in large cracks that cost family members thousands of dollars of unnecessary expense. Some of the families continue to ignore the cracks because they do not wish to take on the large expense of fixing the crack.  It is not uncommon to spend between $10,000 to $50,000 to solve a title issue created by the lack of estate planning.  The whole crack could have been avoided if an attorney was retained to assist in the preparation of the deed.  The cost to hire an attorney to prepare a deed is typically a minimal expense that may result in a bill anywhere from $150 – $500.    

Do not be like the Roosevelt Bridge, contact Crary Buchanan today to review or begin preparing your estate plan. You want to avoid any large cracks and the threat of an imminent collapse in your estate plan.