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Why is LegalWills better than a Will kit?

"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)   Read more testimonials

How do we compare to the competition?

How is the Will service at LegalWills.co.za better than a blank form do-it-yourself Will kit?

A Last Will and Testament allows you to make key appointments and to express your wishes for the distribution of your property. An online Will service is a good option if you are comfortable planning your own Will. If your situation is more complex, for example if you own a business, have a family member who will need long-term financial support, are separated, own significant property abroad, or have a large or complex estate, a lawyer can give you advice that no online service can.

You need to be careful, though, because mistakes are easy to make, especially when you write your Will using a blank form kit bought online or from a bookshop. LegalWills.co.za guides you through the process of writing your Will so you avoid many of the pitfalls associated with blank form DIY Will kits.

Most do-it-yourself Will kits are too simple

At LegalWills.co.za, we have spent many years reviewing blank form Will kits, and we keep finding the same shortcomings.

Most DIY Will kits give too much responsibility to the individual preparing the Will. There are too many blank spaces and not enough guidance. The consequences of incorrectly completing a blank kit can be serious: at best, it can lead to one of your bequests not reaching the intended beneficiary; at worst, the entire Will can be voided and your estate will be distributed according to intestate law.

Oftentimes, the issue is with what is missing from the kits, rather than what is included in the Will kits.

Sample Will kits

We have purchased some Will kits to demonstrate the issues. Hopefully these examples will illustrate to you the advantages of using an online service like the one at LegalWills.co.za.

The samples below are blank form kits that were sold in Canada and the United States. The details vary from country to country, but the problems they show apply to any fill-in-the-blanks Will form.

The first example demonstrates how difficult it can be to prepare a well-drafted Will. The blank space has a full page asking you to list your legacies (Yes, this "kit" was really on sale, and we paid good money for it.) There are at least two significant problems with this approach:

• Firstly, you should not list all of your assets in your Will. You don't know when your Will is going to come into effect; it could be tomorrow, it could be in 30 years' time. During this time your assets will change. You do not want to have to update your Will every time an asset changes.
• Secondly, once your Will is probated, it becomes a public document that anybody can read. You may not want detailed descriptions of all of your assets available for public entertainment.

What makes a Will kit a legal Will?

Any downloadable Will service can claim to be a "legal Will". A legal Will is simply a declaration of your Last Will and Testament that is signed in the presence of two witnesses. You could type on a blank piece of paper that "this is my Last Will and Testament. I leave everything to my wife Jane", sign the document in the presence of two witnesses, and it would technically be your legal Will. It just wouldn't be a very good one.

Here is a second example, of a "legal Will kit" that is little more than a blank piece of paper.

A quality Last Will and Testament service

One of the most challenging aspects of describing the distribution of your estate is covering the "what if" scenarios. Oftentimes that distribution plan is very simple. For example, you may leave everything to your spouse. But what if you are both involved in an accident at the same time? You need a backup plan. If you have children, they may become the main beneficiaries, but you may also need to name guardians for their care, and set up trusts if they are under the age of 18. You may also want to include a charitable bequest. It's the lack of a backup plan that often causes problems with do-it-yourself Will kits: if a gift fails, that part of your estate may be distributed under the intestacy rules instead of as you wished.

How does the MyWill™ service help create a legal Will?

The service at LegalWills.co.za takes these issues into account. We guide you through the process and help you plan for the "what if" scenarios in your distribution plan, such as a beneficiary dying before you. We prompt you to name your key appointments, describe your family situation, name guardians for children if appropriate, and set up trusts for young beneficiaries.

Advantages to writing your Will with LegalWills.co.za

In addition to giving you a better Last Will and Testament than a blank form kit, there are some additional benefits to using the service at LegalWills.co.za to prepare your Will.

These include:

• Great value for money. You can prepare your Will for only R499, and your purchase includes a year of unlimited updates. After that, a membership is optional and never renews automatically: it lets you keep updating your documents and printing them in full, and keeps your Keyholders' access active. The Will you have signed stays valid whether or not you renew. Your alternate Executor has been taken ill? Just log in to your account, update your appointments, and print a new Will to sign.
• Our service is kept up to date. A printed Will kit can only reflect the law on the day it was printed. The law on Wills and inheritance in South Africa changes from time to time, and we update the service at LegalWills.co.za to reflect those changes.
• Our Will service teaches you about Will planning. We will ask you questions that you may not have considered. When you print your final document you will know what it says, and why it says it.
• We have a variety of additional services. Our optional paid services, including MyLifeLocker™, MyVault™, and MyMessages™, let you leave a detailed record of your affairs, your important files, and personal messages for the people you trust. With our free MyKeyholders™ service, you choose who can unlock them after your death, what each person can see, and how long they must wait. Each Keyholder can also have a free digital wallet card, as a PDF or in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, with a QR code that takes them straight to the Keyholder sign-in. Keyholder access needs an active membership.
• Peace of mind. You can also have your final Last Will and Testament checked over for internal consistency and ambiguous wording by a qualified legal professional. The reviewer works from the document alone and does not know your personal circumstances, so the comments are not legal advice.

Try our Legal Wills service right now

The best way for you to experience the difference is to try the service. Step through it now and see for yourself what sets us apart. You can choose to pay at the end, and we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you feel that our service does not work for you.