Will and Powers of Attorney

Please use an attorney and $500 is reasonable, but I would ask the attorney about guardianship documents being included in that fee. While it may seem like a chunk of change, these are not documents that you want done incorrectly!

500 seems high to me. Have you checked legalzoom.com? It does seem like you could buy your own program and just make sure everything is notarized and that would be just as binding a quite a bit less costly.
I did my own divorce with legal zoom years ago, I think it cost me 80 bucks to have them complete the paperwork and then I paid the filing fees when I filed.
I hate making lawyers richer...but that's just me.
Make a call to a paralegal in your area and ask them about it, that would be another alternative as far as getting the documents filled out properly and alleviating high cost atty signatures.
Just my thoughts on it....
I havent done one myself, but I think those would be the first avenues I would check before a lawyer unless you have 500 bucks you want to throw at them.......

If your will is simple (most are), there is no need to pay $500 for it. You can do it yourself. The website, uslegalforms.com, has wills and power of attorney (and much more) that are state specific so you can be sure that your paperwork is correct for where you live. They also have forms for general wills if you don't want to do state specific. It's around $20 for a will, and $20 for the power of attorney.

USLegalForms is also endorsed by Dave Ramsey as being inexpensive yet reliable and safe to use.

http://www.uslegalforms.com/

Agree with the other posts, it really is in your best interest to have an attorney do it. And if it can be done for $500 that is very reasonable. My husband and I each did a Will, Powers of Attorney and Trusts for our children 4-5 years ago? And it was almost $2000.

I can't address your question about cost for wills and powers of attorney - I think the price also depends on the cost for legal work in your area. We live in Illinois, and I just went through this process rather quickly for my mother because she was preparing for surgery. She had an online will, which she had notarized but did not have powers of atty. My husband and I have a complete estate plan that also includes stand-by guardians (if we're disabled), permanent guardians (if we pass away together), etc. Our attorney advised establishing a trust and putting my mother's assets in the trust. I'm not sure if this is the case in all states, but in Illinois, the ONLY way to avoid probate is to have a trust, even with a will. He said that probate takes approx 9-12mos in Illinois. In that time, there will be costs for atty and court fees, and the assets will not be available to pay bills and taxes, nor could we sell our mother's home. While it is $$ to establish and move all of the assets into the trust, he said it is less expensive than probate. Anyway, this is more of an issue if you and your spouse die together. In my mother's case, everything went straight to her when my father passed away, but it's much more complicated when the surviving spouse dies. This is way more info than you were looking for, but it might be worth considering...

Don't use a computer program. Go to a good lawyer and make sure that you are protected. If you have children, you need to distribute your assets, name guardians, have power of attorney, health care surrogates and possibly living wills.

We just did all of this two weeks ago (an update as we now have two children) and it was $1400. I think $500 is cheap! We are in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Make sure you have back ups for all of the people you have named and discuss guardianship with whomever would inherit your children.

Good luck!

I think that you also need a trust, which you really can't do on your own and for which $500 sounds reasonable (mine was $1000 10 year ago but things tend to be expensive where I live). A will contains your wishes for distribution of your assets and guardianship of your children, which is the first step, but you also need to provide financially for you children and surviving spouse in the event that one or both of you pass away. Assuming you would rely on life insurance and possibly the equity in any property that you own, retirement funds, etc. to provide for your heirs financially, you can set up a revocable trust through which you can dictate in detail what assets will be used by whom, for what, and when. You can assign a trustee who is different from the guardian that you name and that person would be in charge of distributing funds to your children's guardian as outlined in your trust. When you children become adults, any leftover funds could be distributed to them at specific age (e.g. 1/3 given out at 25, 30 and 35).

I would strongly advise getting pricing on having a trust rolled into this. I know of one family in which the grandfather died, leaving money in the will for the grandchildren, who were minors, with the intent of helping with their college education. Somehow an uncle was left in charge of this and he blew through all of the money. In my husband's family, his maternal grandparents died after his mother did, so he and his brother were to receive half of the substantial estate, as indicated in the will. The aunt was also the executrix and she was not of sound mind so after 7 years of fighting, the boys got a fraction of what they should have and she spent the rest, donated a bunch, let the family home disintegrate and all of the remaining assets were taken to pay for her medical bills when she died because she was uninsured. It's just so sad that these folks worked very hard to accumulate assets that they thought would be passed down to younger generations to help them achieve their education goals or get them off on the right footing and things like irresponsibility and greed wasted all that they had built. The proper use of a trust is the best way to really protect your assets and ensure that your children are well cared for even if you're not here.

you want a trust, not a will. wills go thru probate which can be expensive and take forever! 500 is a good price.