Zoom Your Estate Planning
For most, estate planning receives the greatest amount of procrastination within financial planning.
It’s understandable given the formality with an attorney, time commitment, complexity of choices and as parents with young kids thinking who/what ensures your child’s continued growth with your untimely demise. Add a pandemic, “we’ve been meaning to do it” turned into “we should’ve done it when it was easier and safe”.
Surprisingly, many are unaware that last April 28th, Massachusetts Senate Bill 2645 was passed/signed by Governor Baker to allow remote virtual notarization of legal documents through video-conferencing technology.
Yes, you can now work with an estate planning attorney through Zoom and FedEx to develop and complete your holistic estate plan.
I asked David Feakes, who over 20 years ago founded The Parents Estate Planning Law Firm, PC, to share his firm’s experience and client observations to this legislative change.
Early Zoom adoption. “Last March/April, we’d help clients far along by doing signings in parking lots, picnic tables holding umbrellas and while we managed to do it safely, it was unsustainable”, says David. “We’d been in communication with our state reps and got our firm’s new policies and procedures in place. Once passed, we were proactive with Zoom, not just signings but also helping clients in our discovery phase move forward, as they had just put everything on hold.”
Scheduling and engagement are easier for clients. “Parents with kids coordinating to come to our offices in Acton at the same time during work hours is hard”, confessed David. “Also the idea of coming to an attorney’s office can be intimidating, so now with the ability to do it all from home with kids running around or cats walking across the screen, it’s helped relaxed clients and made decision making easier.”
What remains constant - the why. “People have had time to reflect on making sure their kids are cared for if something unthinkable happens”, shared David. “A will is not enough, we educate clients on legal strategies of trusts, guardianships, power of attorneys, health proxies, tax planning and legacy distribution. Additionally, as I share our process to get to know a client’s family and what’s important, I sense calm and relief when we reiterate this can all be done virtually and safely - something normally reserved at the completion of an estate plan.”
As a fee-only CFP working with financial planning clients, I’d echo David’s observations with Zoom and leveraging virtual technology. In 2018, a few early adopters chose this option to engage, but today the benefits of time, convenience, and ease of access are thankfully felt by all.
The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.
Glenn Brown is a Holliston resident and owner of PlanDynamic, LLC, www.PlanDynamic.com. Glenn is a fee-only Certified Financial Planner™ helping motivated people take control of their planning and investing, so they can balance kids, aging parents and financial independence.
This article appeared in the March editions of Local Town Pages for Holliston, Natick, Ashland, Franklin, Hopedale, Medway/Mills and Norfolk/Wrentham
Please call me at (508) 834-7733 or directly schedule a meeting to learn more about considerations for planning and investing so you can balance kids, aging parents and your financial independence.
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