La Pine, OR asked in Estate Planning for Oregon

Q: I am preparing 3 legal documents, Durable Power of Attorney for Finances, Will, and Transfer on Death Deed. I am using

Stevens-Ness legal forms which I purchased. My question is: I would like to put both of my children's names as the executors of the document with the word OR between their names so that either one of them can execute the documents. Is that OK?

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1 Lawyer Answer
Joanne Reisman
Joanne Reisman
Answered
  • Estate Planning Lawyer
  • Portland, OR
  • Licensed in Oregon

A: I do not recommend you do your own forms for estate planning. You need to talk to a lawyer to make sure that what you think is going to happen is what is going to actually happen. Steven's Ness forms are only intended for use by trained lawyers that know the impact of the forms. They were never designed to be used by people that are not lawyers. Bad bad bad idea. The average house in Portland is worth $350,000 or much more. Why would you want to skimp and not pay a few hundred dollars to see a lawyer and make sure things are being done correctly? It just doesn't make sense to me. Also you probably have not even considered what would happened if you were in a serious accident or had a stroke and were in incapacitated? Your power of attorney is not likely to be enough for someone to successfully manage your finances and get you the care you need. A revocable living trust would be a much better device. The problem with powers of attorney in Oregon is that there is no central registry like in other states. The financial institutions are afraid to accept these pieces of paper as having the legal authority that the paper appears to have because there is too much risk that the power was either forged or revoked and there is no way to authenticate the document. The end result is your appointees will have to hire an attorney and go to court and most likely set up a conservatorship which can cost thousands of dollars in legal fees which may have been completely avoidable if you had seen an attorney in the first place and gotten proper legal advice.

Kenneth V Zichi agrees with this answer

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