How To Write A Will in South Africa.
"Very easy to create a legal Will following the
steps on this site. Used the service for both my husband and myself. Unfortunately,
my husband passed away this past November. I had no problems settling the estate
(it was quite simple) using the Will we had prepared online. I will continue to use
the service to update my Will and to keep it updated. Thank you for making this service
affordable and keeping it simple." ---
Esther Sielsky Read more testimonials
Everybody needs a Will. Traditionally, it has been an expensive and inconvenient process,
which involved making an appointment with a lawyer, and spending thousands of rands.
A couple of decades ago, these barriers were addressed with blank form Will kits available
from newsagents and bookshops, and even the Post Office. But these kits have always been a
terrible approach for writing a Will, with far too many mistakes being made. More recently,
online services have appeared that allow you to prepare a Will online from the comfort of
your home. The service at LegalWills.co.za has evolved into South Africa's leading online Will service.
The difference between an online Will service and a DIY blank form Will Kit
Read what makes us better
You may have been warned about the dangers of writing your own Will.
But the examples given to illustrate these dangers are taken from Do-It-Yourself Will kits –
the blank forms you can get from WHSmiths, and more recently Amazon.
These kits expect you to fill in the blanks, but some of these blanks are daunting.
Describing the distribution plan for your estate can be straightforward in a family of two parents and two children.
Where the entire estate goes to the spouse, and if both are involved in a common accident, everything goes to the children.
But things are rarely this simple.
If the children are under the age of 18, you should set up a trust for them, and name guardians for them.
The "what if scenarios" are rarely straightforward. What happens if one child pre-deceases you;
would their share go to their children, their spouse, or would everything flow to your other child?
If your spouse is not the biological parent of your children, then it is almost impossible to correctly fill
in a blank form Will kit. If you are single and the distribution plan is less obvious, it is also very
difficult to use a blank piece of paper or a "kit" to prepare a Will.
The worst thing about Will kits is that you may think you have described a particular plan,
but you have actually written something different. One very common error is leaving everything to a spouse,
and when they die, everything goes to the children. Without a trust being set up, the estate goes to the spouse, and is then
distributed according to their own Will.
An online interactive service guides you through the process of preparing a Will to check for errors.
It asks you for your plans in plain English, and then translates your answers into an official
Last Will and Testament with the appropriate legal clauses. The end result is miles away from a
blank form Will kit.
Why you need a Will
A Will fulfils two important functions. It allows you to make key appointments, and it allows you to describe the distribution of your estate.
Within your Will you can name a person to take responsibility for everything after you have gone – your Executor.
You can also name guardians for your children. You can even name somebody to take care of your pets.
You can also describe how you would like to distribute your possessions. This includes charitable bequests,
specific items to individuals, like a piece of jewellery to your niece. Finally, you can describe the distribution
of your "residual estate". This is usually in the form of "everything else to be divided between my children"
or "everything to my spouse".
Without a Will, your estate is frozen until the courts appoint an estate administrator. This person will then divide your
entire estate according to the "intestate laws".
This distribution plan rarely matches a plan written into a Last Will and Testament.
Why most people don't have a Will
Most people know that they need a Will. A few people may think that "I'm not going to die any time soon" or
"I don't have any assets" or "it's obvious what will happen to my things anyway".
But none of these excuses really make any sense.
Even though most people know they need a Will, traditional approaches to writing a Will have been expensive and inconvenient.
To the point that it just never makes it to the top of the "to-do" list. Writing a Will with a lawyer
is so inconvenient and expensive, that people try to time the task so that it only needs to be done once in their lifetime.
This means that they wait. They wait until they are married, or wait for their first child to be born,
or wait until they have bought a house, or wait until they have retired.
Ultimately, this results in the majority of adults in South Africa not writing a Will.
How to write a Will – Conveniently and Affordably
By using an online Will writing service like the one at LegalWills.co.za, you can write your Will at any time that is convenient to you.
You can put your feet up and work through our service on your computer or iPad. You don't have to complete the task in one sitting.
If you need to consult with family on your guardianship appointment, for example, then you can save your work and return to it later.
If you have given thought to your answers ahead of time, then you can step through the service in about 20 to 30 minutes
(beware of services that claim to take you through the process of writing a Will in 5 or 10 minutes).
The cost for our service is just
R499.
If you are a couple, then you will need Mirror Wills. Our service shortcuts this process for you with our proprietary
Mirror Will service, and discounts the second document. The Mirror Will costs just
R299
with absolutely no restrictions on the content.
All the time your account is active, you can make updates to your Will as often as you wish.
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