One of the most important contracts you may ever sign in your life is one that will protect your assets and your wishes after your life is over. A will is one way to ensure that your assets and final wishes are respected, and can be a great comfort to your family and friends upon your death.
Perhaps you’re thinking, “But I can’t afford to have a will drawn up by an attorney. Plus, I don’t have much stuff anyway, and it all goes to (fill in the blank with someone’s name).”
Valid points, but let’s look at this realistically. You may not think you have a lot of things, but if you own any real property, a house, bank account, checking account, a car, retirement through your work, or anything that has cash value, you need a will. It’s that simple.
Yes, designating a beneficiary on insurance policies and establishing a Pay On Death clause in your bank accounts can help with some of these issues, but not everything allows for this. While you may believe your spouse or child is going to automatically inherit your property, this is not always true. Courts have granted ex-spouses and distant relatives, even business associates and creditors portions of a person’s estate or assets when there hasn’t been a clear indication of those items being willed to someone.
As far as affording to create a will, there are now more options available than ever before, and one of the newest options for creating a will and testament is using online tools and resources, some even for free.
Before You Create Your Online Will
The first step you need to take toward creating an online will is to get your paperwork together. You will need at the very least all of the following items:
* Bank names and account numbers
* Vehicle identification numbers and descriptions
* Credit card account information
* Mortgage and title/deed information on property or houses
* Identification numbers to any other vehicles (boats, RVs, motorcycles, ATVs, etc.)
* A list of personal property belonging solely to you
* A list of personal property belonging jointly to you and someone else
* Child custody and birth records or information for minor children
* Any documents or papers for residual income, royalties, copyright ownership, patents held, settlements or installment payments due, or other sources of revolving or recurring income
* Anything else you can think of that is important to you that you want to bequeath to someone else in your life
Before you begin to create your will, you need to get all of your information together and in one place, because this will make creating the will faster and easier.
The next step in the process of creating an online will is to find the will creation service, software or document you want to use. There are many options available for creating a will that can be found online from a simple fill-in-the-blank legal form all the way to purchasing books or software to download that lets you fill in information and then renders a printable will you can sign and have witnessed or take to an attorney to validate.
How to Create an Online Will – Legal Forms
One option is using a fill in the blank legal form to create a standard will and testament. There are several places online offering legal forms for wills. USLegalForms.com offers a variety of legal forms with simple to understand, fill in the blank information that is even catered to state laws for some forms. There are other websites that offer free forms or forms for anywhere from a few dollars up to hundreds of dollars. Leading office supply retailers, such as Office Depot, with an online presences also sell legal forms you can purchase online.
The main thing is to ensure the forms adhere to your state and your situation. You can then download the form and fill in the blanks with your information, and then the will is ready to print and witness.
There are a large variety of books and ebooks that can be ordered online to help walk you through the process of creating a will and testament. These books will take you step-by-step through your assets and most of them also come with fill-in-the-blank forms that you can use on your computer and then print.
Nolo is a leading publisher of legal instructional books and legal forms to help people create legal documents that are binding in court. Nolo.com is the website, and you can search from there.
How to Create an Online Will – Software
Another way to create an online will is to purchase software that will create your will for you. These types of software are similar in nature to tax preparation software, where they will ask you a series of questions, you fill in the information, then it will compile that into a legal document, properly formatted, and then you can print that document.
These software products can cost anywhere from a few dollars to several hundred, and the services you receive will vary. For example, some software will allow you to compile the information and send it to an in-house attorney to verify. These will cost more than the wills you create yourself and print. Be sure if you use one of these software programs that you purchase it from a reputable website or retailer, since your personal asset information will be included when you create your will, and you don’t want just anyone to have access to that information.
Once you have decided which manner of creating a will at home is going to work for you, the next step is to take all the information you compiled in step one, and get ready to either answer the questionnaires or fill in the blanks.
After you have created your self prepared will online or on your computer, you can always take that will to your attorney or to an estate attorney or paralegal who specializes in estate planning, and have them certify the will as legal. The fee for this will vary, but it can bring peace of mind to know the will is legal and will hold up to scrutiny if contested in court, but is still much cheaper than having an attorney create the will for you.
Leaving a will for your final wishes and letting those you love and have shared your life with know how you want your personal effects, estate and assets handled is one of the most loving things you can do. It’s not as daunting a task as you might think, and being able to create a will online or self prepared in your spare time will save you money too.
