How are we Better?

This website uses the most advanced and secure online software technology available today, guaranteed to create a perfect, high-quality, lawyer-approved legal Will, custom-made to your personal situation and local jurisdiction.

We are so confident in our proven technology, which has taken over 5 years to develop, and is updated continuously, that we offer a 30-day 100% money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied with your Will.

"I used your service to write a Will for my dear wife Christine who passed away this year. The Will was easy to fill out and very straightforward. I never had one problem arise because of the Will." --- Keith Sutton   Read more testimonials

How do we compare to the competition?

How is the ExpatLegalWills.com MyWill™ service better than a do-it-yourself legal will kit?

The Keyholder® Advantage. Where do you plan on storing your Will? Can the "Executor" of your Will easily locate all of your assets? When you pass away, let us worry about communicating the location of your Will and a list of your assets. This optional service is provided for FREE when you create a Will here at ExpatLegalWills.com. There is simply no other company that provides such a complete and convenient service to their customers. Tell me more.

Most people do not need a lawyer, but be careful. It is extremely important for everybody to have a legal Will. However, the whole process of expressing one's estate planning wishes has in many cases been made overly complicated by the legal profession. There is no doubt that people with large estates, sophisticated business interests, or unusual family situations, should seek legal advice. But for the vast majority of people it is possible to legally document one's wishes, without paying exorbitant rates for legal advice. Many publishers have attempted to address this need by heavily marketing "do-it-yourself legal will kits" which have been easy to condemn by the legal profession because, for the most part, they are awful. Here, we explain what makes legal will kits so poor, and how the MyWill™ service at ExpatLegalWills.com differs.

Most do-it-yourself will kits are too simple.  At ExpatLegalWills.com we have investigated and reviewed a number of "do-it-yourself legal will kits" and share the conclusions already made by the CBC in their Market Place consumer affairs show that for the most part, they are grossly inadequate and can lead to drawn out court battles where family members try to interpret the statements of the testator. In an article published in the Miami Herald in 2002, Peter Cohen, a Miami lawyer, said: "I really believe that tremendous damage is being done with these kits. If they go wrong, the consequence are grave.''. The key finding of these investigations has been that most kits are just too simple, and, as a leading Canadian lawyer noted, "What is not in here is more important than what is in here".

Buyer beware.  To highlight the importance of the above lawyer's statement, we show below some samples of "legal will kits" collected by our team at ExpatLegalWills.com and explain some of the pitfalls of these kits. It will also become apparent why the MyWill™ service at ExpatLegalWills.com is in a completely different league and should not be compared to these kits. All of the samples shown here are from assorted, well known publishers, who advertise heavily or are prominently displayed in major stationery and book stores. Here is an example of what you get when you purchase one of the more popular will kits on the market today --- a simple piece of paper with a few blanks to fill in. (Yes, you can actually buy this "kit" and we paid good money for it.)

Do It Yourself Will Kit #1 - FRONT Do It Yourself Will Kit #1 - BACK
Competitor Sample #1

Is it a legal will?  When a document claims to be a "legal will" you have to understand what that means. If I type on a piece of paper "This is the Last Will and Testament of me, John Doe, of Toronto, Ontario. I leave my entire estate to my son James Doe."  Then, if I sign the document in front of two witnesses, and date it – then I have a legal will. That is how a vendor can get away with calling their product a "legal will kit".  Here is another example of a popular will kit, which once again leaves the consumer with the daunting task of trying to figure out how to fill in the blanks:

Do It Yourself Will Kit #2 - FRONT Do It Yourself Will Kit #2 - BACK
Competitor Sample #2

You must plan for the unexpected.  As lawyers tend to point out, what is missing in these simple will kits is a description of what can go wrong. What happens if John Doe has two children? Or a wife? What will happen if James Doe dies before John Doe? Contrary to popular belief, you are not necessarily free to leave your estate to whoever you please. So a blank piece of paper may be called a "legal will kit" but the completed document may have no standing in a court of law.

Do It Yourself Will Kit #3 - FRONT Do It Yourself Will Kit #3 - BACK
Competitor Sample #3

You need to know what to think about.  Some marginally better kits, such as the one pictured above, take account of the "residue clause" in a will (i.e. making an alternate plan in case one of the beneficiaries cannot receive a gift), but this sample is still riddled with problems. Leaving blank spaces for the description of estate distribution could easily result in these common pitfalls:

  • What happens if you have any dependents currently in your care? If you provide for them today and they have an established relationship with you, then they may have a claim on your estate (depending on local laws).
  • What if you have any debts that you owe or have anything owed to you?
  • What if you want to make a more detailed provision for each of your beneficiaries not being able to receive a particular part of your property. For example, if one beneficiary does not survive you, you may want to name an alternate beneficiary.
  • What will happen if both parents are killed in the same accident?
  • What if you are not absolutely explicit in your wording? Terms like "divide my estate equally between my cousins and my friend Bill" have at least five different interpretations.

The MyWill™ service has been designed to handle all of these issues.  Using an informative and comprehensive system such as the MyWill™ service at ExpatLegalWills.com makes more sense. It is not perfect for every situation, and you can check our Frequently Asked Questions to determine if MyWill™ is suitable for you. If it is, then you will benefit from stepping through a series of questions ranging from your family status, your wishes for estate distribution, setting up alternate plans, specifying guardianships and trusts, and setting up charitable donations. We will then build your responses into a legal will custom-made for your local jurisdiction and based on templates created from legal reference books (the type that are found on the bookshelves of every estate planning lawyer).

The MyWill™ service has several other advantages.  We have taken the ability for consumers to write their own legal will to a whole new level.  There are several additional features provided by the MyWill™ service that a do-it-yourself will kit cannot even begin to address.  These include:

  • 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. 
  • 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 Will.  Or we can send you simple email reminders, no more than once a year, to remind you to consider updating your Will if any significant changes have occurred in your life. 
  • Our wizards, help and information are designed to be the best on the market and are kept up-to-date on an ongoing basis.
  • The MyWill™ service provides you with complete instructions and answers your questions in everyday language, free of legal industry jargon.  We have developed this service based on the requirements of the public, not dictated by the legal profession.
  • The Keyholder® Advantage. You can take advantage of our unique messaging service which allows you to describe the exact location of your Will 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 have 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 ExpatLegalWills.com ensures that the contents of your Will are made available to the specific people designated by yourself, and only at the appropriate time.
  • You can even have your final document checked over for consistency and completeness by one of the affiliates in our legal team.

Don't take our word for it. Try it out for yourself.  We have worked with lawyers in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom to bring you the MyWill™ service and to ensure that it is of the highest quality.  Best of all, you can try it now, without any commitment. Take a look at the sample will kits described on this page, then try the ExpatLegalWills.com MyWill™ service. Then decide.

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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