Keyholders®

Welcome to ExpatLegalWills.com.  It is likely that you have come to this web page because you were informed that you have been chosen to be a "Keyholder®" for one of our members here at ExpatLegalWills.com.  You may be curious about your responsibilities, or you may have decided that now is an appropriate time to carry out these responsibilities.

If you are a Keyholder® and would like more information about your responsibilities, please review the Frequently Asked Questions below and feel free to browse the rest of this website.  If you still have unanswered questions, please send an email to [email protected] and we will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

If you need to login because the person who asked you to be their Keyholder® has become mentally incapacitated or has passed away, please login with your Keyholder® ID at the Keyholder Login page.

Keyholders® - Frequently Asked Questions

A "Keyholder®" is a person who has been identified by one of our members here at ExpatLegalWills.com to be given the trust and power to unlock their wishes when the time is right (i.e. when the member has passed away or has become mentally incapacitated).  In most cases, Keyholders® are members of the family or close friends who can be trusted to protect the member's privacy.  Each Keyholder® is given a unique, secure " Keyholder® ID" by the member, which allows them to login to access the member's wishes when the time is right.

Each member can designate several Keyholders® and can even specify, for each Keyholder® , which specific services they can unlock.

Each member here at ExpatLegalWills.com has the option of documenting one or more of the following items:

  • MyFuneral™ - The member's personal wishes regarding their funeral arrangements
  • MyMessages™ - Unsent messages the member has prewritten to their family/friends
  • MyWill™ - The member's Last Will and Testament
  • MyExpatWill™ - The member's Expatriate Will for assets held in a foreign country
  • MyLivingWill™ - Directions regarding the member's medical care if they are unable to communicate this themselves
  • MyPowerOfAttorney™ - Directions regarding the handling of the member's finances if they are incapacitated
  • MyLifeLocker™ - Personal information critical to be passed on to the member's family and executor
  • MyVault™ - Important files and documents to be passed on to the member's family and executor

As a Keyholder®, you may not be able to unlock and view all of the above items.  This is because the member has specified in advance which particular items can be accessed by each of their Keyholders®.  As a result, each Keyholder® may in fact be given different powers.  Once you have logged in as a Keyholder®, you will be able to see which of the above items you have been given the power to unlock.

If you are a Keyholder® you may have received an email or a letter identifying you as a Keyholder® of a named ExpatLegalWills.com member.  This email or letter would have described your responsibilities and also assigned you a unique, secure, "Keyholder® ID".  Alternatively, the member may have asked you to be their Keyholder® more directly and provided you with a Keyholder® ID themselves.  If you have never been informed of your Keyholder® responsibilities and have never received a Keyholder® ID then you are not a Keyholder® .

Yes.  It is possible for a member to designate more than one Keyholder® for their wishes.  If they wish, they can even communicate that the same Keyholder® ID be used by more than one person, although this is discouraged.

Yes.  There is no limit to the number of members that may have asked you to be a Keyholder® for their wishes.  In this case, you will be assigned a different Keyholder® ID for each member.

Only the member knows for sure if they have designated more than one Keyholder® for their wishes.

It is possible for a single member to designate a number of Keyholders® , each with the power to unlock their wishes.  Furthermore, each Keyholder® may have been given the power to unlock the same wishes, or the member may have distributed responsibilities for different wishes across different people.

In any event, the process is the same.  As a Keyholder®  when the member has become either mentally incapacitated or has passed away, then you should login with your Keyholder® ID and request to unlock those wishes for which you have been granted access rights.  It is possible that one or more of the member's wishes have already been unlocked by another Keyholder® , in which case they may already be visible to you, or you may need to wait (along with the other Keyholders® for that member) until they can be accessed.

If you have been designated to be a Keyholder® for more than one member, then you will have been given a unique secure Keyholder® ID for each member.  When the time comes that you need to login to access a member's wishes, be sure to use the Keyholder® ID associated with the member that you are accessing.  After entering your Keyholder® ID, you will be asked to confirm the name of the member in question, and this will reaffirm that you are using the correct Keyholder® ID.

If you have misplaced your Keyholder® ID for a member who is still alive and competent, then you should ask that member to generate a new Keyholder® ID for you, and to disable the previous Keyholder® ID.  If the member has passed away or has become mentally incapacitated, and you know that you were once assigned a Keyholder® ID for this person, but have since misplaced it, then you should contact us.

As a Keyholder® you have been given the responsibility to unlock one or more items which have been created by a ExpatLegalWills.com member.  This member has put their trust in you to unlock these items only when they have become mentally incapacitated or have passed away.  These items could include their funeral wishes, their Will, Living Will, Power of Attorney, uploaded files and documents, or messages to friends or loved ones.

In addition, it is possible that you have been designated by the member to carry out some instructions in these items, but this will be made clear in their wishes.

If you are a Keyholder® for a ExpatLegalWills.com member and they either have become mentally incapacitated or have passed away, then you should login with your Keyholder® ID at the Keyholder® Login page and follow the instructions.

Once you have logged in, you will be presented with the member's identification and asked to confirm that this the person who designated you to be their Keyholder® .  At the same time, to prevent premature unauthorized accessed to the member's wishes, the member will be notified of your actions immediately and will have the opportunity to lock you out.  Assuming that the member information is correct, you will be able to see the list of items for which you have been granted access, and also their current status: locked, unlocked or visible.  Any item that is locked can be unlocked by you, and again, immediate notification regarding your request to access the item will be sent to the member.  Unlocked items will become visible after a period of time determined by the member.  These security mechanisms are in place to protect the member's privacy and to prevent premature unauthorized access to the member's wishes.  When an item is visible, it is accessible by all of the member's Keyholders® .  In the case of the MyMessages™ item, you will not be able to view any of the member's prewritten messages --- in this case, when the MyMessages™ item becomes "visible" it actually means that all of the member's messages have been sent.

If this sounds complicated, don't worry --- it is an extremely intuitive process.  Just follow the instructions on the screen.  If you have any questions along the way, feel free to refer to the online help or to contact us.

The ExpatLegalWills.com member has gone to great lengths to document their wishes.  These may include their preferences for funeral arrangements and private messages that they have written to loved ones.  If you are the only Keyholder® for this member (only the member would know if this is the case), then you are the only person who can unlock these wishes.

The member selected you as a trusted individual to unlock these wishes.  If you do not unlock them after they have become mentally incapacitated or passed away, then they will remain locked and nobody will read them.

Please contact us.

If the member's wishes are already unlocked, and you did not unlock them yourself, this indicates that they have been unlocked by another Keyholder® who has also been given the power to unlock this member's wishes.  If any of the items are unlocked but not yet visible, then you will be able to see how much time is left before the items become visible.  When that time arrives, then you will be able to access the items.

After you login as a Keyholder® , you will only see the items for which the member has given you the power to unlock.

If the member has become mentally incapacitated and is still alive, then you should only unlock the following items, if they appear in your list: MyLivingWill™, MyPowerOfAttorney™.

If the member has passed away, then you may unlock the following items if they appear in your list: MyFuneral™, MyWill™, MyExpatWill™, MyLifeLocker™, MyVault™, MyMessages™.

For most of the items, there is no action required from you other than to view the items and ensure that the information contained within them is used to fulfil the members wishes.  In many cases, it is appropriate to communicate to the rest of the member's family or next of kin that you have access to these wishes so that the member's wishes can be fulfilled.

If the member has prewritten any messages to their friends/family using the MyMessages™ service, you will not be able to view any of the messages because they are private.  By unlocking this item, the messages will be sent automatically to their recipients after a delay specified by the member.

Simply click here, or come back to ExpatLegalWills.com at any time to join as a new member. 

We do charge a small fee for some of our services to cover our expenses, including the MyWill™, MyLivingWill™ and MyPowerOfAttorney™ services.  The complete pricing structure is available on our Products & Prices page.

If you have additional questions after reading all of the information provided here, feel free to send an email to [email protected].

For information about the services we offer, or about ExpatLegalWills.com in general, you can browse this website or send an email to [email protected].  We will be happy to answer any questions you may have.