The Peace-of-Mind Review

Why Documents Fail — More Often Than You'd Think

Every week we see estate planning documents that were prepared by attorneys, downloaded from the internet, or generated by online services — documents that look finished, sound authoritative, and will not work when it matters. The problems are rarely obvious to the person holding the document. They are obvious to us.

The most common problems we find:

Execution Errors

Pennsylvania has specific requirements for how estate planning documents must be signed. A will requires two witnesses — and those witnesses cannot be individuals who stand to inherit under the will. A power of attorney requires both a notary and two witnesses, along with a specific statutory notice that must be signed before the agent can act. Healthcare directives have their own signature requirements.

Documents that were not executed correctly are not legally valid — period. It does not matter how well the document is drafted if the signing ceremony was done wrong. We see this most often with documents that were signed at home without attorney supervision, notarized at a bank without proper witnesses, or generated by an online service that provided instructions the client did not follow precisely.

Language That Doesn't Reflect Your Wishes

Generic document templates use generic language. Generic language is designed to cover the average situation — which means it often does not cover your situation. We regularly find wills that leave assets "in equal shares to my children" without addressing what happens if a child predeceases the testator. We find trusts that distribute assets to a beneficiary outright at age 25 when the client actually wanted staggered distributions. We find powers of attorney that grant broad financial authority but omit the specific language needed to allow the agent to make Medicaid planning transfers on the principal's behalf — a gap that can cost families hundreds of thousands of dollars when a nursing home crisis occurs.

If you have not read your documents carefully — with someone who can explain what the language actually means in Pennsylvania — you may not know what you agreed to.

Missing Backup Designations

What happens if your primary executor cannot serve? What if your agent under your power of attorney predeceases you, or becomes incapacitated themselves? What if your primary beneficiary dies before you do?

Documents that name only a primary designee with no successor create gaps that can require court intervention to fill. We frequently see powers of attorney with no successor agent named — documents that become useless if anything happens to the primary agent. A properly drafted estate plan anticipates these contingencies and names successors for every critical role.

Sensitive Information That Should Not Be There

A will becomes a public document when it is filed for probate — anyone can read it at the courthouse. Despite this, we regularly see wills that include Social Security numbers, account numbers, specific financial balances, medical diagnoses, and other sensitive personal information that has no business in a publicly filed document.

Healthcare powers of attorney present a different problem. We see documents that include detailed medical history, specific diagnoses, and other health information embedded in the document itself — information that will be handed to hospital staff, insurance companies, and other parties who have no need for it.

Your estate planning documents should accomplish their legal purpose without becoming a roadmap to your identity or medical history.

Healthcare Directives That Don't Say What You Think

Healthcare powers of attorney and living wills are the documents most often completed incorrectly — and the documents most likely to matter in an emergency. The most common problems we find:

Sections left blank. Many healthcare directive forms have optional sections that clients skip over, not realizing those sections determine what happens in specific medical situations. A blank section is not a neutral choice — it often means the document is silent on something important.

Conflicting instructions. A living will that says "withhold life-sustaining treatment" combined with a healthcare power of attorney that gives the agent "full authority to consent to any medical treatment" creates a conflict that puts your healthcare agent in an impossible position.

Agent designations without alternates. If your designated healthcare agent is unavailable in a crisis — and crises happen without warning — a document with no successor agent leaves medical providers without legal authority to take direction from anyone.

We review every section of your healthcare documents to make sure they are internally consistent, fully completed, and clearly express what you actually want.

When You Should Get a Review

Even documents that were properly prepared can become outdated or ineffective as your life changes. As a general rule, if any of the following apply, your estate plan deserves a fresh look:

Your documents are more than 3–5 years old. Laws change. Pennsylvania's Power of Attorney Act was significantly amended in 2015, and documents drafted under the prior law may not be accepted by financial institutions that require the current statutory notice language. The SECURE Act changed how inherited retirement accounts are treated in trust documents. If your documents predate major legal changes, they may be technically valid but functionally outdated.

Your children are now adults. If your estate plan was drafted when your children were minors — with a testamentary trust, a guardian designation, and age-based distribution provisions — it may need to be revisited now that they are adults. The trust structure that made sense for a 10-year-old may not reflect what you want for a 30-year-old. And your children themselves may now be appropriate candidates for roles like executor, agent, or healthcare proxy.

You've moved to Pennsylvania from another state. Estate planning documents are generally governed by the law of the state where they were executed. A will or power of attorney drafted in Ohio, Florida, or any other state may be valid in Pennsylvania — or it may not satisfy Pennsylvania's specific execution requirements. Either way, it almost certainly does not reflect Pennsylvania-specific planning considerations like our inheritance tax rates, our probate procedures, or our Power of Attorney Act requirements.

You've had a significant change in assets. An inheritance, the sale of a business, a large retirement account balance, the purchase of real estate — any significant change in what you own can affect how your estate plan should be structured. A plan designed around a $300,000 estate may not serve a $1.5 million estate, and vice versa.

You've changed jobs or retirement accounts. Beneficiary designations on 401(k)s, IRAs, and pension plans are set when you enroll — and rarely updated. A job change means a new account with a new beneficiary designation form, often filled out quickly during onboarding without much thought. Old accounts at former employers may still have ex-spouses, deceased relatives, or otherwise outdated beneficiaries named on them.

You've been through a divorce. Pennsylvania law automatically revokes certain provisions in a will in favor of a former spouse after divorce — but not all of them, and not beneficiary designations on financial accounts, retirement plans, or life insurance. A divorce requires a comprehensive review of every document and designation in your estate plan. This is one of the highest-urgency situations we see.

A fiduciary has died, become incapacitated, or is no longer the right person. Your executor, trustee, agent under your power of attorney, and healthcare proxy are the people who will implement your plan. If any of them have died, become ill, moved away, or had a significant change in your relationship with them, your documents need to be updated. A power of attorney whose named agent has died is a useless document.

There's been a death in the family. The death of a spouse, a child, a sibling, or a parent can affect your estate plan in multiple ways — as a beneficiary, as a named fiduciary, or simply because the family circumstances that shaped your original plan have changed. After a significant loss, a review ensures your documents still reflect your current intentions.

You've been diagnosed with a serious illness. A health crisis changes the calculus on almost every aspect of estate planning — from the urgency of having healthcare directives in place to Medicaid planning considerations if long-term care becomes a possibility. If you or a spouse has received a significant diagnosis, sooner is always better than later.

You got your documents from a seminar, an online service, or someone other than a Pennsylvania estate planning attorney. This is not a knock on every document generated outside of an attorney's office — some are fine. But the probability of an execution error, a missing provision, or language that does not align with your wishes is significantly higher when documents were prepared without personalized legal guidance. A review tells you where you stand.

What to Bring

Bring whatever documents you have. That might include your will, a revocable living trust and pour-over will, a durable power of attorney, a healthcare power of attorney, a living will or advance directive, or any combination of the above. If you had documents prepared by another attorney, an online service, or a seminar organization, bring those. If you are not sure what you have, bring everything and we will sort it out.

You do not need to prepare anything in advance. We will review the documents during the consultation and walk you through what we find.

What You Get

At the end of the Peace-of-Mind Review, you will know:

Whether your documents are legally valid under current Pennsylvania law. Whether they actually accomplish what you intend. What specific problems exist, if any, and how serious they are. What it would cost to fix them, if anything needs to be fixed — quoted in writing, before you commit to anything.

There is no sales pitch and no pressure. If your documents are in good shape, we will tell you that and send you on your way. If they need work, you will know exactly what and why — and you can decide whether to address it with us or take that information elsewhere.

Schedule Your Peace-of-Mind Review

The Peace-of-Mind Review is complimentary for new clients. Call our office at (724) 733-3500 or use the button below to schedule.

You can also download our one-page self-assessment checklist to see whether your estate plan is due for a review:

↓ Download: Is It Time to Review Your Estate Plan?