What makes us the best?
This web
site uses the most advanced online software technology
available today, guaranteed to create a perfect,
high-quality, lawyer-approved legal Will, customized to
your personal situation and local jurisdiction. We
are so confident in our proven technology, which has
taken over 5 years to develop, 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,
Surrey, B.C. Read
more testimonials
How do we compare?
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
USLegalWills.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 our service
differs.
Most do-it-yourself will kits are too simple.
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 and explain some of the pitfalls of these kits. It will
also become apparent why our service 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.)
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
Miami, Florida.
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:
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.
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:
 | You can make use of the
ultimate convenience of the Internet to create your Will at your own pace,
online, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and
to make changes online at any time free of charge. (Why pay a lawyer every
time you need to update your Will?) |
| Our pay-one-price membership
model protects your investment for the rest of your life. There is no need
to purchase a do-it-yourself legal will kit in the first place, nor do you
need to purchase an upgraded version every year. |
| 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. |
| We provide you with complete
instructions and answer 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
our services ensures that the contents of your Will are made available to
the specific people designated by yourself, and only at the appropriate
time. |
| If you wish, you can even have your final document checked over
for consistency and completeness by one of our lawyers. |
