ONLINE WILL
AND TESTAMENT

When you create a Will with Live On it is a legally valid document.

You must make sure you follow the instructions for the signatures (two qualified witnesses sign with you and witness your signature).

If you have done this, the resulting document is a legally valid Will.

This document will those entrusted with distributing your estate to understand your last wishes and have the Will probated so they can follow your instructions as you have described in the Will.

For more information on what happens and how please see our FAQ on “What happens when someone has passed”.

If you pass away without a Will the laws of the jurisdiction where you live will determine who inherits your estate and in what proportion.

By passing away without a Will you lose the ability to choose your beneficiaries.

A Will is a document that will determine how your estate is distributed, and there are two main elements you need to understand.

First, if you wish anyone in particular to receive a specific gift, you should mention this outright. The reason for this is so that the individual you have in mind will actually be the one receiving this gift. For example, you could determine that your car goes to one of your children. This is a specific gift. You can have as many specific gifts as you like. Just make sure what you are gifting is yours. An example would be a house you share with your spouse. If you own 50% of your house, that is the percentage you can gift. Many spouses leave their percentage of their house to their spouse as a specific gift.

Second, is the remainder of your estate. Once all debts have been paid the remaining assets are what is left for your beneficiaries to split. LIVE ON therefore asks you to name the beneficiaries and the percentage they will receive of what remains. This has been done because it is the easiest formula. Anything you have not specifically called out to give to a particular person will be distributed to the beneficiaries in the percentage you have chosen, once all debts are paid.

It’s important to remember that a Will is only valid upon death. You are free to do anything with your property before you pass away, even if you have mentioned that property in your Will. In that case, the Will applies to property that is still owned at time of death.

LIVE ON’s Will format is flexible since it takes the estate as a whole (after special gifts) and applies a percentage. This means that no matter how and if you property changes your Will does not need to be changed if you sell an asset.

There are many steps that must be followed once someone has passed way, but the first one involves establishing your Will as the true last one. An attorney or a notary will typically do a Will search which may involve serving notice on any interested parties (beneficiaries under the law for example). Once no other Wills (for example a Will that is written at a later date) are found, a judgement will validate your Will as the true last one.

This process is called probating a Will. The intent is to make sure that the true last copy of your Will is used to follow your wishes. All Wills in Canada must be probated. And there are additional costs related to this, such as the Will search and court fees as an example.

Depending on the jurisdiction, probating a Will can take from three to six months depending on the backlog at court. Even once this is done the beneficiaries do not immediately receive the property that is given to them in the Will. This property (the estate) will first go to an Executor who must tally up everything, pay all of the debts, and file a final tax return. As a last step, the remaining property and assets can be distributed according to the Will.

Most attorneys or notaries recommend that you update your Will whenever you have a change in your current situation.

Examples of important changes are: getting married, having a child, buying a house or even inheriting something. Any important change to your financial situation would be a reason to update your Will. If you use LIVE ON’s free Will writing service you can update your Will free of charge as often as you like. You can also update your Will if you change your mind on something. Just be sure to eliminate all previous copies so as to avoid headaches for your estate!

You can update or change your Will as many times as you wish but you must have the mental capacity to do so (for example, not be mentally incapacitated) and be able to do so of your own free Will (no one is forcing you to change your Will).

If you pass away without a Will the laws of the jurisdiction where you live will determine

It is important to remember that your will is a long term document, meaning it should be valid for a very very long time. Even if all of your beneficiaries are in good health no one knows what the future will bring. If you do not choose replacements, the laws of the jurisdiction where you live will decide on who gets what. That may be contrary to your wishes.

Therefore, it’s better to select a replacement for each beneficiary of your estate as well as those beneficiaries receiving specific gifts. Even if this seems life a time-consuming exercise it can be crucial to avoid conflict and confusion.

If you pass away without a Will the laws of the jurisdiction where you live will determine

If you have children under the age of majority when you pass away (this varies depending on what Province you live in) you may want to appoint a guardian to take care of your child. Since being a guardian is a big responsibility it can only occur under certain conditions, namely:

1. you are the only person who has custody of your child
2. the person you have appointed accepts to be the guardian and
3. this appointment is valid for 90 days as it must be ratified by a court.

It is important to know that a Will cannot override any custody arrangements in place. Therefore the appointment of a guardian is reviewed by a court in order to take into account all factors. When you select a guardian in your Will you are making your wishes known, but the actual decision must be taken at the time when the Will takes effect.

If you pass away without a Will the laws of the jurisdiction where you live will determine

Depending on where you live, the correct designation may be Testamentary or Estate Trustee, Liquidator or Executor. Name aside, this is someone that has the responsibility of following the instructions in the will so that the beneficiaries you have chosen receive what is their due.

Generally, an executor should be someone that is over the age of majority. Please check what that is in your region as this varies. Some families decide to appoint a child that is not of the age of majority executor anyway, because the testator is still young and the child might be major at the time the Will takes effect. If not, the remaining Executors will take on these responsibilities, if you have named others. Because liquidating an estate takes time, executors are always someone you trust with managing the estate, prior to any distributions being made. This sometimes means paying bills, taking care of debts that may exist and paying taxes as a final tax return must be made.

The LIVE ON Testament is in a legally valid format throughout Canada, as long as you follow the instructions for signatures.

In other words, our will uses, for the most part, the same legal language as a Will prepared by a Notary or a lawyer.

This type of Will is a Will in the presence of witnesses and is valid everywhere in Canada, only Quebec has a special clause.

In Quebec the Wills signed before Notary are not subject to the probate process.

Everywhere else in Canada this exception does not exist.

But residents of Quebec can avoid probate if the signature has been made before Notary.

Residents of Quebec you can avoid the probate process by having your Will drawn up by a Notary or by having your LIVE ON Will signed by our Notary.

If you choose the LIVE ON Will option follow the instructions to create your Will on our free software, but instead of signing the Will with witnesses you will make an appointment to sign it before our Notary.

The document does not change, but your signature is received by our Notary.

The cost for receiving your signature is only 199$.

That saves you the eventual probate process that can cost upwards of 1000$.

All Wills signed without a Notary in Quebec must be probated.

The other option is to have the will written in its entirety by a Notary.

A Notary remains a good idea for anyone who is not certain of the decisions to make regarding their heritage or for anyone who has a complex heritage with a lot of assets.

For those who have a simple separation of property in mind (for example, such percentage for each child) a Will drafted by a Notary may not be required.

Now with LIVE ON there is a simple solution that avoids the potential oversights of a Will written by yourself.

The costs of writing a notarial will vary depending on the complexity but can be in the range of 500$-800$ for a standard estate.

The Notary must meet you, listen to your heritage decisions, write a document and receive you a second time for signing.

Wills written by a Notary must not be probated, in Quebec only.

In Canada all wills must be probated.

The only exception to this rule are wills signed before a Notary in Quebec.

The purpose of the probate is to present the will to the court and to obtain a judgment declaring that it is the unique and valid will, representing the last wishes of the deceased.

Probate also establishes the identity of the liquidator, and thus the estate process can begin.

The cost of probating a Will can vary but can cost up to $1000.

In addition, the process can take a long time, a few weeks in non-busy jurisdictions and several months in urban centers where the Court is busier.