Writing your Will: we can help with the definitive guide

As with any task that comes to mind on odd occasions in your life, writing your Will can seem overwhelming. So much so, that most people don’t do it. However, if you are coming to this page, something that probably happened in your life to make you realize that writing a Will is a vitally important task.

Sadly most people who feel an immediate need to prepare their Will just do a Google search for a local estate planning attorney. They make an appointment, pay several hundreds or thousands of dollars and live with the peace of mind that the task is finally off their To Do list. As long as they don’t need to update it.

However, with a little research, you will quickly understand that writing your Will needn’t be difficult, inconvenient or expensive

Here are ten quick steps to writing your Will; Continue reading →

Writing a Legal Will: the worst advice we have seen yet

Much of our customer support effort is spent on correcting misunderstandings that have usually arisen from bad information that has been posted on the Internet. As with anything that you do once or twice in your lifetime, the terms will be unfamiliar, and there will be a lot to learn. But the task is made that much more difficult by woefully incorrect information that proliferates on different “advice blogs”. The example at the top of the page is from a reasonably well respected resource at Nerdwallet (we couldn’t help but post a comment under their article, so they may have fixed it if you click through). But this staff writer, who doesn’t appear to have any legal training has written; Continue reading →

How to write a Will: your 10 step guide to success!

Everybody knows that they need to write a Will, but the stats show that only about a third of adults in the US have managed to get it done. Some say it’s the cost that puts people off, others say that it’s finding the time to make an appointment. In our experience of fielding calls through our customer service center, the real issue is that most people have no idea where to start. A very common call we receive is “I know I need to write a Will, what do I do?”. Here we have ten steps to go through to prepare your Will.

1. Choose your approach

You can take one of three approached to write a Will. The cheapest is to use a blank sheet of paper, or a blank form kit, and fill in the blanks explaining what you want to happen to your things after you have died. Continue reading →

The 4 critical people in your Last Will and Testament

You probably know that your Last Will and Testament is a description of how your estate will be distributed after you have passed away. It gives you an opportunity to recognize the people and organizations that have had an impact on your life and insures that your assets are distributed according to your wishes. But beyond the distribution of your assets, this article will highlight four key appointments that are made in your Will.

Your Executor (or Personal Representative)

This person has the responsibility to carry out the instructions in the Will and without a Will the Executor will be appointed by the courts. It’s a difficult appointment to make because you need to find somebody with the organizational skills to collect your assets, file your taxes and provide reports to the beneficiaries.

The Executor has to of course be trustworthy, Continue reading →