LegalWills.ca vs. Willful.co

LegalWills.ca vs. Willful.co, head-to-head

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Willful.co vs. LegalWills.ca: Key Differences Explained

Multiple alternate scenarios

It is very common to have a simple distribution plan. For example, "leave everything to my brother". But what if your brother were to pre-decease you, or was involved in a common accident with you? It is important to have as much flexibility in the backup plan as you have in the first-choice plan.

You may want to leave everything to your brother, but if you are both involved in a common accident, you may want to leave $1,000 to the Humane Society, your car to your nephew and everything else divided between your children.

This is what the options for your alternate plan look like at LegalWills.ca:

This is what the equivalent page looks like at Willful.co:

There is a cool slider, but it limits your options to dividing the estate. You cannot create any specific bequests.

Depending on how you step through the service, you may only be given ONE option:

The distribution plan for your estate should not be constrained by the tool that you are using.

Group beneficiaries

It is very common to want to leave an estate to a group of people, such as "my grandchildren", "my siblings", or "my book club".

At LegalWills.ca, this is not a problem. You can easily leave a bequest to be shared between members of a group:

At Willful.co, a beneficiary can only be a named individual, or charity:

Willful.co does not support group beneficiaries.

Staggered trust payouts for minor beneficiaries

Both services support Trusts for minor beneficiaries. However, at LegalWills.ca you can distribute the trust over a number of payments. For example, you can have your minor beneficiary receive one third of their inheritance at age 21, one third at age 25 and the remainder at age 28. This is an extremely common strategy:

At Willful.co, you are restricted to specifying a single age at which the minor must receive their full inheritance:

Different trust set up for different minors

At LegalWills.ca, you create a trust plan for each minor beneficiary. For example, if you have two children with different levels of financial responsibility, or different financial needs, then you can create a completely different trust profile for each. You may want your daughter to receive their inheritance at age 23, but your son at age 27. If one child is older than the other, you may want your children to receive their inheritances at the same time, but not at the same age.

At LegalWills.ca, each trust is set up separately for each minor beneficiary.

Willful.co is built for speed. You have one option, one age, and this applies to every minor beneficiary.

Lifetime interest trusts

This feature is difficult to implement, but absolutely critical for blended family situations.

A "blended family" is one where your spouse or partner is not the biological parent of your children. A common preference for blended families is that "if I die, everything will go to my spouse, but when they die, it will all go to my children".

This common scenario is supported by LegalWills.ca, but not by any other service provider in Canada. All other service providers allow you to leave everything to your spouse, but they rely on trust that your spouse will then remember your children in the distribution plan in their Will (their estate will now include all of your assets).

It is extremely common for a spouse to move on with their life, perhaps even start a new relationship, or have close ties to a charity. Remember, your children are not their children, and it is very common for them to subsequently leave your children out of their plans.

Without a lifetime interest trust, your entire estate will pass to your spouse, and there is every chance that your own children will not see a single dollar of your estate.

Uniquely, LegalWills.ca allows you to create a lifetime interest trust that leaves everything to your children but allows your spouse or partner to use it for the duration of their lifetime. For example, they can continue to live in your house, but when they die, it will pass to your children.

Willful.co does not support lifetime interest trusts.

Allow free-form descriptions for a distribution plan

Online Will writing services guide you through the process of writing your Will. They try to make things easy by offering the most obvious options to you; things like: leave everything to your spouse, divide everything between your children, leave a specific bequest to a charity.

But what if you have an idea for what you want to do, that doesn't fit into these cookie-cutter options?

At LegalWills.ca, we always give you a "none of the above" option.

Willful.co does not allow customers to enter free-form descriptions for their distribution plan.

Joint Executors and Alternate Executors

It is very common to want to name one's children as joint Executors. Otherwise, you are forced to favour one child over another.

It is also common to want to name one's spouse as the first choice Executor with one's children to act jointly as an alternate choice.

This is difficult to implement in such a way that it is flexible, but also intuitive.

At LegalWills.ca, we have done this both for the first choice and also for the backup, alternate Executors:

Again, for the sake of expediency, Willful.co restrict your Executor to ONE person, and restrict your backup alternate Executor to ONE person:

Again, your Will should not be constrained by a limitation in the software that you are using.

Flexibility with a Mirror Will

At LegalWills.ca, we have balanced simplicity with flexibility.

We allow you to move data from one account to a second account so that you don't have to re-type information such as children's names and dates of birth, or Executor names.

Furthermore, you can choose exactly which data is moved over, and you are also free to edit the second Will however you wish after it has been created. It is not locked as a Mirrored Will:

Again, Willful.co has opted for speed rather than flexibility and offer only the option to add an additional bequest. Everything else that goes into the second Will must be taken from the first Will, and there is no option for editing the second Will once this has been done.

This significantly constrains the structure of the second Will.

Complementary Wills for assets in other countries

Are all of your assets and property in Canada? Or do you also have property in the U.S., or in the U.K.?

If you do have assets in other countries, you cannot simply write a Will for each country. The first clause in every Will "revokes" (cancels) all previous Wills. This means that when you sign your U.S. Will, for example, then you would automatically cancel your Canadian Will.

To handle the assets that you own in a foreign country, either now or in the future, you will need a service like the Expat Will service at LegalWills.ca. It allows you to write multiple Wills to cover your assets in different countries. Each Will states specifically the scope of the assets that it is dealing with and, working together with your primary Will, these documents cover your entire estate.

LegalWills.ca is unique as the only online Will writing service provider to offer an Expat Will option.

Ability to change the final document

Most online Will writing services allow you to download the final document as a locked PDF file. You cannot make manual changes to the final document.

LegalWills.ca is unique in its formatting and delivery options:

At LegalWills.ca, you can view your Will within the browser, you can download the Will as a PDF file, you can email the document to any email address, and you can even opt to have the document printed professionally and mailed out to you.

Also, we are the only company that allows you to download the final document as a fully editable Microsoft Word document. After all, it is your document, so you should be able to modify it yourself however you wish!

Online Reviews

We're committed to providing each and every one of our customers with exceptional client care. Here's what some of our customers had to say.

All Reviews

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Very easy to use and excellent value for money compared with other online wills that I searched. Full explanations during the step by step process, and great personal customer service when needed.I like their recommendation to use a separate detailed addendum for Executors which can be kept private and easily amended anytime on your computer. They have a host of other services like their notification service, funeral wishes, etc. Very happy with this product.

Steve Heathcote

Loved this product. So very easy to use and produced an excellent document that was pretty much what my lawyer 15 years ago produced and for a much, much higher fee. Well done Legal Wills.

Jan Kupecz

Great experience. Quicker, easier and less expensive than a lawyer. The digital access is a nice touch as well with being able to appoint key holders in case something happens. So simple and easy to setup. Would have done this ages ago if I knew how quick and painless it could be. Had my sister set hers up the same day and she had no issues either.

Mike Markle

Excellent product. Virtually foolproof step by step instructions. I have told friends and relatives that even if they have an existing lawyer prepared will and they want to make changes, Legal Wills is the way to go because it is so economical. Could not be happier. Thanks Legal Wills!

Tom and Sherry Whiteway

The process of completing my will was very straight forward, and the information provided to help me understand what to do and why to do it was very succinct and practical. It felt much like completing my online tax return. The wizard led me all the way and it was easy!

Fred Van Arragon

I was looking online about making a will and came upon this website. It's fast, user-friendly, easy, and efficient. I feel a lot better knowing I have a will in place as a parent and didn't have to pay so much to get it done. Thank you for this service, Legal Wills!

Emilie Wallace

Loved this product. So very easy to use and produced an excellent document that was pretty much what my lawyer 15 years ago produced and for a much, much higher fee. Well done Legal Wills.

Jan Kupecz

Great experience. Quicker, easier and less expensive than a lawyer. The digital access is a nice touch as well with being able to appoint key holders in case something happens. So simple and easy to setup. Would have done this ages ago if I knew how quick and painless it could be. Had my sister set hers up the same day and she had no issues either.

Mike Markle

Very easy to use and excellent value for money compared with other online wills that I searched. Full explanations during the step by step process, and great personal customer service when needed.I like their recommendation to use a separate detailed addendum for Executors which can be kept private and easily amended anytime on your computer. They have a host of other services like their notification service, funeral wishes, etc. Very happy with this product.

Steve Heathcote

I was looking online about making a will and came upon this website. It's fast, user-friendly, easy, and efficient. I feel a lot better knowing I have a will in place as a parent and didn't have to pay so much to get it done. Thank you for this service, Legal Wills!

Emilie Wallace

Excellent product. Virtually foolproof step by step instructions. I have told friends and relatives that even if they have an existing lawyer prepared will and they want to make changes, Legal Wills is the way to go because it is so economical. Could not be happier. Thanks Legal Wills!

Tom and Sherry Whiteway

The process of completing my will was very straight forward, and the information provided to help me understand what to do and why to do it was very succinct and practical. It felt much like completing my online tax return. The wizard led me all the way and it was easy!

Fred Van Arragon

Great experience. Quicker, easier and less expensive than a lawyer. The digital access is a nice touch as well with being able to appoint key holders in case something happens. So simple and easy to setup. Would have done this ages ago if I knew how quick and painless it could be. Had my sister set hers up the same day and she had no issues either.

Mike Markle

Very easy to use and excellent value for money compared with other online wills that I searched. Full explanations during the step by step process, and great personal customer service when needed.I like their recommendation to use a separate detailed addendum for Executors which can be kept private and easily amended anytime on your computer. They have a host of other services like their notification service, funeral wishes, etc. Very happy with this product.

Steve Heathcote

Loved this product. So very easy to use and produced an excellent document that was pretty much what my lawyer 15 years ago produced and for a much, much higher fee. Well done Legal Wills.

Jan Kupecz

The process of completing my will was very straight forward, and the information provided to help me understand what to do and why to do it was very succinct and practical. It felt much like completing my online tax return. The wizard led me all the way and it was easy!

Fred Van Arragon

I was looking online about making a will and came upon this website. It's fast, user-friendly, easy, and efficient. I feel a lot better knowing I have a will in place as a parent and didn't have to pay so much to get it done. Thank you for this service, Legal Wills!

Emilie Wallace

Excellent product. Virtually foolproof step by step instructions. I have told friends and relatives that even if they have an existing lawyer prepared will and they want to make changes, Legal Wills is the way to go because it is so economical. Could not be happier. Thanks Legal Wills!

Tom and Sherry Whiteway

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