When approaching something new and unfamiliar, people tend to think of things like estate planning in the simplest terms possible. However, it’s not like going to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk where there may be some small differences, but by and large, there is not much of a price difference and milk is generally a commodity. That is not the case when it comes to estate planning since there is such a broad range of goals and methods to help reach those goals. It’s more like walking onto a car lot and asking “how much is a car?” In this review, I cover the basic ways to think about estate planning costs while reviewing the question and attorney responses in the Reddit Estate Planning section.
I’m going to react to some questions put out on Reddit. How much is estate planning? Well, that is kind of like going onto a car lot and asking how much is a car. It all depends.
Per a post on Reddit: How much is a reasonable fee from an estate attorney? I know the short answer to this is surely “it depends” but I’m looking for a ballpark. I approached an attorney and it’s just pricier than I expected, though I admit I have no basis for comparison.
He wants to know a ballpark. What’s a ballpark figure for a car? Well are you talking about a used car with 200,000 miles on it in need of a paint job, or are you talking about a brand-new Ferrari? There are differences in all of them depending on what you want.
To continue: They will be doing estate, custody of children, wills, etc. and they said it would be about $2600. They gave an hourly rate of $250 an hour for the paralegal and a little over $400 an hour for the attorney.
Estate Plan Costs
Well, let’s talk about that for a second. Some of the estate plan costs can depend on what area geographically you are living in, is it a higher or lower cost of living? Right now in 2022, those hourly rates are pretty reasonable, if they are doing it by the hour. This comes down to that larger discussion that I will definitely do more videos on in the future, do you charge a flat rate fee for this service and that’s it and it’s just the standard, or do you charge an hourly rate?
I tend to want to charge a flat rate fee. Sometimes that means I’m working a little bit more but sometimes I’m not. But in the end, it is always that solid predictable price. But I’m only going to give that price after I’ve sat down and gone through all of their goals and what they want to accomplish.
This poster on Reddit left off so much information that I have no idea what they really want. How can you say what is reasonable?
You can hear more of the comments left on this post along with my opinion by clicking here and watching the video in its entirety.