Use Caution in Choosing an Estate Planner

The California attorney general’s office cautions senior citizens and their children and caretakers to carefully scrutinize the credentials of anyone who offers to prepare a living trust or other estate-planning document.

Such documents are sometimes marketed as a way to gain access to seniors’ financial information. The seniors are then pressured into buying insurance or investments that may be inappropriate.

Seniors may also be falsely told that a living trust can help them avoid income or estate taxes. Living trusts are designed to avoid the costs of probate, a court process that occurs after death.

Anyone who prepares estate-planning documents should have several years’ experience in the field and special training, said Arthur H. Bredenbeck, a Half Moon Bay attorney and former chairman of the State Bar of California’s estate-planning section.

“Obviously, I would love to say, ‘Consult a lawyer,’ but other people may be competent,” Bredenbeck said. “I would get a recommendation from a trusted friend, your accountant or your banker--somebody I trusted.”

Some documents, such as a will or a simple living trust, can be drawn up using self-help books or software. But even one of the leaders of the self-help legal movement, estate-planning attorney and author Denis Clifford, recommends that people with assets worth more than $600,000 or those with complicated estates seek competent legal advice rather than trying a do-it-yourself approach.

Liz Pulliam can be reached at [email protected]. For more information about estate planning and trusts, visit The Times’ Web site at http://pixel.nohib.com/HOME/BUSINESS/PERFIN/.