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CBC's Market Place attacks the Canadian Legal Will Kit

Think twice about using a Do-It-Yourself Will Kit

July 10, 2001 -- On a show first broadcast last year, the consumer affairs TV show 'Market Place' attacked a product called the Canadian Legal Will Kit, and questioned the use of all Do-It-Yourself Will kits.

Having seen the $1 million advertising campaign on the Canadian Legal Will Kit, a couple with a young child purchased two Will kits and a Power of Attorney kit for $80.  They thought that the kit was "easy to follow, very straightforward… but it makes you wonder 'is it legit?' ".

To find out if the Will really was legitimate, Market Place took the finished document to a lawyer specializing in estate planning and the drafting of Wills.  She noted that "What is not in here is more important than what is in here" and went on to explain that the problem with most kits is that they are too simple.  The Canadian Legal Will Kit did not give enough advice or warnings about potential problems.  The Will that was created was so basic that it was missing crucial information including a survivability clause covering the event that both parents and their only child all died at the same time (an unfortunately all too common occurrence when families travel together).

The lawyer profiled in Market Place charges $600 to draft a Will, claiming that this is more cost effective than paying the cost of litigation arising from the absence of information in a poorly written Will.

LegalWills.ca is delighted that Market Place has highlighted the inadequacy of most Do-It-Yourself Will kits.  CEO Tim Hewson agrees that the essence of a legal Will is little more than stating that 'I, John Doe, leave everything to my wife Mary' and having that statement signed and witnessed.  By providing this, and little else, a Do-It-Yourself Will kit is able to offer a simple template for creating a legal Will, but it is very likely to be contested in a court of law if other people are omitted, or if one spouse does not survive the other.

The question-and-answer wizard employed by the MyWill™ service at LegalWills.ca forces our members to think about all of the common questions that form the basis of a comprehensive Will, including: making alternate arrangements, specifying guardianship of minors, forgiving debts and other important issues.  With online help available at every step of the way, a LegalWills.ca member not only creates a legal Will, but also understands the issues and nuances involved in the Will making process.  In addition, the MyWill™ service offers members the option of having their Will reviewed by a legal professional who can check each individual Will for completeness and consistency.  Something that is not available from a Do-It-Yourself Will kit.

Of course, there will still be some instances where the MyWill™ service at LegalWills.ca may not be appropriate.  For example, if an estate is extremely complex with property in many countries, or if there is a desire to disinherit a spouse or child.  For most people however, the LegalWills.ca MyWill™ service will be more than suitable, as it has been designed to handle all common individual situations (single, married, widowed, divorced, same-sex relationships, with or without children) and to take into account the legal differences in all of the states and provinces in North America.  Nevertheless, after stepping through the question-and-answer wizard, the member will know whether or not the Will produced is acceptable for their particular situation.  If the member feels that their situation is more complex or unusual than the MyWill™ service can handle, even after stepping through the MyWill™ question-and-answer wizard, LegalWills.ca offers a 100% money back guarantee.

If you would like more information about the MyWill™ service or about any of the other services available at LegalWills.ca, visit https://www.legalwills.ca.

For an informative and eye-opening comparison of the MyWill™ service to do-it-yourself legal will kits, read about it here. 


Create your Will, Power of Attorney and Living Will online at https://www.legalwills.ca/.

For More Information Contact:

LegalWills.ca
Email: [email protected]
Internet: https://www.legalwills.ca/

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.

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.

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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.

For a more thorough explanation, please read our blog article: The Cost of a Will in Canada – Explained.

There are no other payments required to prepare your legal Will. You can have a legal Will in your hands for $49.95CAD 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 $69.00CAD. 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. (Currently not available in Ontario.)

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 $9.95CAD, 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 $49.95CAD. 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. $11.95CAD will give you one additional year of updates, or you can purchase multiple years: 5 years at $29.95CAD, 10 years at $39.95CAD, 25 years at $79.95CAD ($3.20CAD 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 $11.95CAD 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.  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, including several of the most popular Canadian legal will kits. 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 Will 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 Will 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 Will. We allow your Will 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 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. (Currently not available in Ontario.)

  • 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 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 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.  

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

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