What to Expect from legalwills.ca

When you decide to use legalwills.ca for your estate planning needs, you should expect a highly streamlined, self-serve online experience focused on efficiency and affordability. It’s designed to simplify the creation of legal documents, making the process accessible to individuals who might find traditional legal services too costly or time-consuming. Understanding these expectations will help you maximize the benefits of the platform.

A Guided Online Process

The primary expectation is a comprehensive, step-by-step online questionnaire. This system is designed to walk you through every necessary decision and piece of information required to construct your legal documents.

• Interactive Questionnaire: You will be guided through a series of questions, prompts, and dropdown menus. These questions are tailored to collect all the essential details for your Will, Power of Attorney, or Living Will.
• Clear Language: Expect the language used to be relatively plain and easy to understand, avoiding excessive legal jargon where possible. The goal is to make complex legal concepts digestible for the average user.
• Progress Tracking: The platform will likely offer a way to track your progress, allowing you to save your work and return to it later without losing information. This flexibility is a significant advantage.
• Conditional Logic: The questions you see will often adapt based on your previous answers. For example, if you indicate you have minor children, you’ll be prompted to name guardians.
• Information Gathering: Before you begin, be prepared to have key information readily available, such as names and addresses of beneficiaries, executors, attorneys, and details about your assets.

Customizable Legal Documents

Legalwills.ca provides templates that are designed to be legally valid in Canada, and you can expect these templates to be customized based on your specific inputs.

• Provincially Compliant: The documents you generate will be structured to comply with the laws of your specific Canadian province. This is critical, as estate laws vary across provinces.
• Standard Clauses: The documents will include standard legal clauses and provisions commonly found in Wills and other estate planning documents.
• Limited but Sufficient Customization: While you won’t get bespoke legal drafting, you can expect sufficient customization options to name beneficiaries, appoint fiduciaries, specify distributions, and articulate personal wishes.
• Digital Output: Your completed documents will be generated digitally, typically in a PDF format, ready for you to print at home.
• No Legal Advice: It’s important to set the expectation that the platform generates documents based on your input; it does not provide personalized legal advice tailored to complex, unique situations.

User Responsibility for Execution and Storage

A crucial expectation for all users of online Will services is that the final steps of making the document legally binding and securely storing it fall entirely on them.

• Printing: You will need to print out the generated documents.
• Proper Signing and Witnessing: You will receive clear instructions on how to properly sign your Will and have it witnessed according to your provincial laws. This is non-negotiable for legal validity. Expect to find two qualified witnesses (who are not beneficiaries) to sign in your presence and in each other’s presence.
• Secure Storage: You are responsible for securely storing the original signed documents. Recommendations often include a fireproof safe, a safety deposit box, or entrusting it to your executor.
• Review for Accuracy: You should carefully review the generated document to ensure all your details are correct and that it accurately reflects your wishes before signing.
• Periodic Review and Updates: Life changes, and so should your Will. Expect to periodically review your documents (e.g., every 3-5 years or after significant life events like marriage, birth of a child, divorce, or major asset changes) and update them as needed through your account.

In summary, expect a user-friendly, efficient, and cost-effective way to create standard estate planning documents with legalwills.ca. Be prepared to actively participate in the questionnaire, gather necessary information, and diligently follow the instructions for proper execution and storage to ensure your documents are legally sound and effective.

Legalwills.ca Review & First Look