The Keyholder® Advantage

The Problem

Where are your important documents, such as your Will, Living Will or Power of Attorney? Once people create these critical documents, they often do not tell their friends or family members where they are stored.  Even if you do tell them, there is no guarantee that many years later they will remember what you told them, or that you will be able to keep them informed every time you move your documents to a new location. Contrary to what many lawyers might tell you, most people do not store these documents in a safety deposit box at a bank. Instead, these documents are more likely to be kept somewhere in your home, often well hidden from prying eyes.

What are your assets? You should not provide a detailed list of your assets in your legal Will. If you do, then every time there is a change in your possessions, you will have to update your Will. Instead, you should document your assets separately, such that they can be communicated to the "Executor" of your Will after you have passed away. Your Executor will make good use of this information to locate all of the assets in your estate.

The Solution

The Keyholder® system.  Here at ExpatLegalWills.com, we have developed the Keyholder® system, which allows your designated friends or family members to locate your documents and important information.  But don't worry.  Security mechanisms are in place which protect you from anyone attempting to access your documents and information prematurely.

When you pass away, let us worry about communicating the location of your documents and a list of your assets. The Keyholder® system includes a unique messaging service which allows you to describe the exact location of your documents, such as your Will and Power of Attorney, and to provide a detailed list of assets for your Executor.

It's FREE. This optional service is provided for FREE to all members of ExpatLegalWills.com. There is simply no other company that provides such a complete and convenient service to their customers.

Your privacy is fully protected. The messages you create which document your assets and the location of your documents are completely private and secure. The Keyholder® system ensures that your documents are stored in a fully encrypted format on our servers.  It's so secure that no one can read them --- not even us. Furthermore, none of the information you provide is communicated until after you become mentally incapacitated or have passed away, and only to the people you specify, so you can rest assured that your privacy is protected. And you are free to make changes any time you wish, free of charge.

You can even store your legal documents online. Storing your legal documents, such as your Will, Living Will and Power of Attorney, online on our secure server is optional (and free), but it is a good idea for a number of reasons. First of all, it allows you to make unlimited modifications and updates to your documents without having to rewrite them each time, and for no additional charge. (Why pay a lawyer every time you need to update your Will?) Furthermore, although these online versions of your documents are not legally binding (as they are not signed and witnessed), they may be useful to loved ones if your original legal documents cannot be located.

The Security

We have developed the Keyholder® security system to protect you from anyone accessing your documents and information prematurely.

As a ExpatLegalWills.com member, you can specify up to 20 friends or family members, each of whom will be given the power to access your wishes when the time is right. For each person you identify, you can specify exactly what specific information they can access, such as:

  • your funeral wishes
  • sending final messages that you have prewritten to your family or friends
  • the contents of your Last Will and Testament
  • health care directives contained in your Living Will, if you are unable to communicate them yourself
  • your Power of Attorney document, which contains directions about the handling of your finances if you are incapacitated
  • the important files and documents that you uploaded to your Vault

The Keyholder® system includes specific security mechanisms which protect the secure integrity of your information and prevent unauthorized premature access to your documents and services.  These mechanisms are fully customizable by you.

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How It Works

When you create a Will or legal document at LegalWills, you can designate up to 20 different Keyholders®. Your chosen Keyholders® will be given the trust and power to unlock specific information within your account such as health care directives, funeral wishes, final messages, uploaded files, Power of Attorney, or Last Will and Testament.

You can also implement security mechanisms to prevent premature access to these documents. The entire process of creating your Will and other legal documents at LegalWills is seamless and iterative, meaning you can continue to make changes until you're happy with the final product.
Click. Print. Sign.

It's really that easy.

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Create Your Documents in Five Easy Steps

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Create Your Documents

Creating your documents is quick and easy with LegalWills. Simply fill out the required fields and proceed to the next step.

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Select Your Keyholders®

Entrust up to 20 individuals to unlock your wishes when the time is right.

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Edit Your Documents for Up To One Year for Free

Make any changes to your documents using our online service.

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Keyholders® Request Access

When the time is right, your selected Keyholders® will have the ability to unlock your wishes.

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Documents are Released to Keyholders®

When the time comes and your Keyholders® request access to your documents, your wishes will be entrusted in their hands.

View Sample Will
 

Frequently Asked Questions

There is no requirement to use the services of a lawyer or notary public to prepare your own estate planning documents, including your Last Will and Testament.

The law that defines the legality of a Will is written specifically for each Province, State and Country, but in summary the law requires that the Will is written on a piece of paper and signed in the presence of two witnesses who cannot be beneficiaries to the Will.

Lawyers can certainly help you to prepare your Will, but everybody has a legal right to write their own Will. If you create a document using our service, it must be printed, signed and witnessed according to our instructions, and then it becomes a legal Last Will and Testament.
Quite simply, because we do not provide you with legal advice.

We are giving you direct access to the same software that lawyers use to prepare their documents, but you are doing it yourself. However, if you need custom clauses written to cover an unusual situation, we cannot do that, and we recommend that you seek legal advice. For example, if you have a child with special needs, they would need a trust written for their inheritance. We don't do that.

In most cases, a document written using our service will be word-for-word identical to one prepared by a lawyer.

There are no other payments required to prepare your legal Will. You can have a legal Will in your hands for $49.95USD with nothing else to pay, ever.

What other options are there?
If you wish, you can have your Will reviewed by one of our lawyers for $69.00USD. Most people do not need this, and would not benefit from it, but if you have selected an option such as "None of the above. Let me describe in detail how to distribute my estate.", then you may want to consider this.

Your Will must first be printed, and then signed in the presence of two witnesses. If you do not have access to a printer, we can print it for you and mail it out. The cost for this is $9.95USD, but again, most people do not need this option.

We also offer other services like MyLifeLocker™, a Financial Power of Attorney, and a Living Will. They are not required, but they may be useful to you depending on your situation.

What about document storage?
We do not store physical documents, but we allow you to maintain an account with us if you want to update your document in the future.

The Will service costs $49.95USD. With this payment, you are able to prepare your Will. It also gives you one year of unlimited updates to the document. You are able to print the document as often as you wish during that first year. You can download it as a PDF or Word file, but to make your document a legal Will, it must first be printed, and then signed in the presence of two witnesses. The online version is there for your convenience only.

If you choose not to maintain an account with us after the first year, your initial payment is all you will ever pay. We do not keep credit card details on file and cannot automatically charge beyond this initial payment.

If you wish, you can choose to store your documents online for longer than a year, which will make it easier to make updates in the future to reflect any changes in your personal or financial situation (rather than returning to a lawyer each time). This is of course optional, but it does make the process of maintaining your document more convenient. $11.95USD will give you one additional year of updates, or you can purchase multiple years: 5 years at $29.95USD, 10 years at $39.95USD, 25 years at $79.95USD ($3.20USD per year).

Every time you make an update to your Will, it must first be printed, and then signed in the presence of two witnesses again. If you choose not to maintain an account with us, you will always have your printed, signed document. If you don't need to make changes to that document, it will last you for the rest of your life, whether or not you have an account with us.

What happens if I don't maintain an account, and then in a few years I need to update it?
If your account has not been touched in years, and it is inactive, we reserve the right to remove the account. You will receive an email notification that your account might be removed. However, in practice, we have never actually removed any accounts in our over 24 years of operation.

So, in all likelihood, you will be able to simply login to your account and pay $11.95USD to reactivate it. This will give you one year of unlimited updates from the date of payment. (You will not have to pay for your inactive years.)

Yes, if you reside in Canada, the United States, England or Wales.

A Will covers the distribution of the assets that you own, often those that are located in your home country.

A Power of Attorney (also known as a Power of Attorney for Finances) and Living Will (also known as a Power of Attorney for Health Care), are very important documents that should be created and updated at the same time as your Will.

This website allows you to create a Will, Expatriate Will, Power of Attorney and Living Will.
Here are just a few differences:

  • We have designed our legal document creation services to be of the best quality available today.   We have evaluated many existing do-it-yourself kits and web-based services. We were shocked by the poor quality, limited instructions, and low value for money that many of these do-it-yourself kits provide consumers. 

  • Incredible value for money.   Our membership pricing model allows us to provide you with the most value for your money at prices that are unprecedented in the legal industry. We worked with lawyers to bring you this service, and we paid for their legal services so you don't have to. 

  • Plain language help and instructions.  In addition, all of our services provide you with complete instructions and answer your questions in everyday language, free of legal industry jargon.  We have developed our services based on the requirements of the public, not dictated by the legal profession.  Our wizards, help and information are also designed to be the best on the market and are kept up-to-date on an ongoing basis.  

  • Create your legal documents from the comfort of your own home.  No lawyer required.  Our unique approach allows you to make use of the ultimate convenience of the Internet to write your Expatriate Will and other documents at your own pace, online, and to make changes online at any time free of charge. 

  • Free unlimited updates.  Don't pay a lawyer every time you need to update your documents. We allow your documents to be kept securely online so that you can make free unlimited updates for as long as you are a member.

  • You can still have it reviewed by a lawyer. We have worked with lawyers in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom to bring you these services and to ensure that they are of the highest quality. But if you wish, we can still arrange for your documents to be reviewed by one of our lawyers, who will check the documents for consistency and completeness.

  • The Keyholder® Advantage. You can take advantage of our unique messaging service which allows you to describe the exact location of your documents and to provide a detailed list of assets for your Executor. All for no extra charge. When you pass away, let us worry about communicating this information to the people you specify. There is simply no other company that provides such a complete and convenient service to their customers. For more information, read about The Keyholder® Advantage.

  • We employ a strong focus on protecting the privacy and security of your information.  We use industry standard encryption algorithms for storing all of your private information, and the design of our services ensures that the contents of your information are made available to the specific people designated by yourself, and only at the appropriate time. 

  • Keep informed and up to date.  If you wish, we can inform you by email about any changes in legislation which may have occurred in your jurisdiction that may require changes to your documents.  Or we can send you simple email reminders, no more than once a year, to remind you to consider updating your documents if any significant changes have occurred in your life.  

Other websites and do-it-yourself kits simply do not compare.

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