Why is LegalWills better than a Will kit?

At LegalWills.co.za, we take advantage of the most advanced online technology to guarantee that you can prepare a Will that looks word-for-word the same as one prepared by a lawyer.

Our service has evolved over the course of 24 years. We are now so confident in the performance of our interactive Will service that we offer a 100% full money back guarantee if you are not completely happy with your document.

"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?

You should use the services of a lawyer if you need legal advice. However, most people do not need legal advice to prepare a Will. A Last Will and Testament is essentially a simple document. It allows you to make key appointments, and expresses your wishes for the distribution of your property.

However, you need to be careful, because mistakes can be made. Especially when attempting to write your Will using a blank form kit that you can buy from Amazon or 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 continue to be shocked at their 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 are extreme; 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 kits we are highlighting below are the biggest sellers in South Africa. We purchased them from major bookshops and online retailers.

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, you can actually buy this "kit" 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.
Do It Yourself Will Kit #1 - FRONT Do It Yourself Will Kit #1 - BACK
Competitor Sample #1

What makes a Will kit a legal Will?

Any downloadable Will service can claim to be a "legal Will". A Legal Will is simple 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.
Do It Yourself Will Kit #2 - FRONT Do It Yourself Will Kit #2 - BACK
Competitor Sample #2

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 makes do-it-yourself Will kits unenforceable.
Do It Yourself Will Kit #3 - FRONT Do It Yourself Will Kit #3 - BACK
Competitor Sample #3

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

The service at LegalWills.co.za takes these issues into account. For the vast majority of users, we provide you with a Will that is word for word identical to one prepared by a lawyer. We guide you through the process and make sure that every possible scenario is covered in your distribution plan. We prompt you to name your key appointments, describe your family situation, ask you to name guardians for children if appropriate, and set up trusts. We use the same software that is used by lawyers across South Africa, but we have adapted it, and given you direct access to it.

Advantages to writing your Will with LegalWills.co.za

In addition to giving you a superior Last Will and Testament, there are some additional benefits to using the service at LegalWills.co.za to prepare your Will. This offers a significant advantage not only compared to blank form Will kits, but actually provides more value than a standard Will writing professional or lawyer's service.

These include:
  • Great value for money. Not only can you prepare your Will for only R499, but with this, you can update your document as often as you wish for one year. Beyond that you can choose to maintain an account with us, so that you don't have to return to a lawyer each time you need to make an update to your Will. Your alternate Executor has been taken ill? No problem. Just login to your account, update your appointments, and print a new Will.
  • Our service is always kept up to date. Most Will kits are out of date and do not reflect the most recent changes in the law. There have been changes to estate planning law in South Africa on quite a regular basis and the services at LegalWills.co.za reflect this.
  • Our Will service teaches you about estate 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. We have services that provide you with a more complete estate plan, including: MyLifeLocker™, MyVault™, and MyMessages™. Used together with the MyKeyholders™ service, we ensure that your information gets to the people who need it, at the right time (and not before).
  • Peace of mind. You can also have your final Last Will and Testament checked over for consistency and completeness by one of our estate planning lawyers.

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 full money back guarantee if you don't feel that our service works for you.

How It Works

When you create a Will or legal document at LegalWills, you can designate up to 20 different Keyholders®. Your chosen Keyholders® will be given the trust and power to unlock specific information within your account such as health care directives, funeral wishes, final messages, uploaded files, Power of Attorney, or Last Will and Testament.

You can also implement security mechanisms to prevent premature access to these documents. The entire process of creating your Will and other legal documents at LegalWills is seamless and iterative, meaning you can continue to make changes until you're happy with the final product.
Click. Print. Sign.

It's really that easy.

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Create Your Documents in Five Easy Steps

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Create Your Documents

Creating your documents is quick and easy with LegalWills. Simply fill out the required fields and proceed to the next step.

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Select Your Keyholders®

Entrust up to 20 individuals to unlock your wishes when the time is right.

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Edit Your Documents for Up To One Year for Free

Make any changes to your documents using our online service.

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Keyholders® Request Access

When the time is right, your selected Keyholders® will have the ability to unlock your wishes.

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Documents are Released to Keyholders®

When the time comes and your Keyholders® request access to your documents, your wishes will be entrusted in their hands.

View Sample Will
 

Frequently Asked Questions

There is absolutely no legal requirement to use the services of a lawyer to prepare your Will.

The law requires that the Will is written on a piece of paper and then signed by you in the presence of two witnesses. Once it is signed and witnessed, it becomes a legal Last Will and Testament.

If you need legal advice, you should secure the services of a lawyer, but most people do not need legal advice to prepare a Will. Especially if they are using a service like the one at LegalWills.co.za.
When you write your Will with a lawyer, you are paying for their training, so that if you needed custom clauses written for unique situations, they would probably be able to do this for you. However, most Wills do not require unique new clauses to be written, and the vast majority of Wills are a compilation of known legal "precedents".

Most lawyers use Will writing software to prepare Wills, and we use that exact same software, but give you direct access to it. You should really be asking why a lawyer charges R2,000 for about an hour's work.

If you have unusual circumstances, such as a child with special needs, then you may need legal advice. But for the vast majority, you would be paying premium rates for legal advice that you don't need.

There are no other payments required to prepare your legal Will. You can have a legal Will in your hands for R499 with nothing else to pay, ever.

What other options are there?
If you wish, you can have your Will reviewed by one of our lawyers for R999. Most people do not need this, and would not benefit from it, but if you have selected an option such as "None of the above. Let me describe in detail how to distribute my estate.", then you may want to consider this.

Your Will must first be printed, and then signed in the presence of two witnesses. If you do not have access to a printer, we can print it for you and mail it out. The cost for this is R99, but again, most people do not need this option.

We also offer other services like MyLifeLocker™ and a Living Will. They are not required, but they may be useful to you depending on your situation.

What about document storage?
We do not store physical documents, but we allow you to maintain an account with us if you want to update your document in the future.

The Will service costs R499. With this payment, you are able to prepare your Will. It also gives you one year of unlimited updates to the document. You are able to print the document as often as you wish during that first year. You can download it as a PDF or Word file, but to make your document a legal Will, it must first be printed, and then signed in the presence of two witnesses. The online version is there for your convenience only.

If you choose not to maintain an account with us after the first year, your initial payment is all you will ever pay. We do not keep credit card details on file and cannot automatically charge beyond this initial payment.

If you wish, you can choose to store your documents online for longer than a year, which will make it easier to make updates in the future to reflect any changes in your personal or financial situation (rather than returning to a lawyer each time). This is of course optional, but it does make the process of maintaining your document more convenient. R119 will give you one additional year of updates, or you can purchase multiple years: 5 years at R299, 10 years at R399, 25 years at R799 (R32 per year).

Every time you make an update to your Will, it must first be printed, and then signed in the presence of two witnesses again. If you choose not to maintain an account with us, you will always have your printed, signed document. If you don't need to make changes to that document, it will last you for the rest of your life, whether or not you have an account with us.

What happens if I don't maintain an account, and then in a few years I need to update it?
If your account has not been touched in years, and it is inactive, we reserve the right to remove the account. You will receive an email notification that your account might be removed. However, in practice, we have never actually removed any accounts in our over 24 years of operation.

So, in all likelihood, you will be able to simply login to your account and pay R119 to reactivate it. This will give you one year of unlimited updates from the date of payment. (You will not have to pay for your inactive years.)

Our answer is different depending on what you are comparing us to.

The service at LegalWills.co.za is significantly better than a blank form Will kit that you can buy on Amazon or WHSmiths. These blank kits do not check for errors, allow you to do things you are legally not allowed to do, and rarely cover backup scenarios. They are actually the most difficult way to prepare a well drafted Will.

We provide the same quality documents as an estate planning lawyer – often word-for-word identical, because we use the same software that they use. We've just adapted it to make it easier to understand, and given you direct access to it. Therefore, you can create a lawyer grade Will, but from the comfort of your own home at less than a tenth of the price.

When compared to other online services, we have honest, up-front pricing that is better than any equivalent service. We also believe that we have the highest quality service online today. In all the time that we have been in business, never once has one of our Wills had an issue going through the probate process. We also offer best-in-class phone and email support if you get stuck.

Some other highlights:

  • Help text every step of the way.   Every page of our service has additional help text to answer your questions. If you get stuck, send us an email and we can help.

  • Create your Will from anywhere at any time.   Our service works on any computer, phone or tablet. Which means you can create or update your Will in the middle of the night in Timbuktu if you need to.

  • Unlimited updates.   If you write your Will with a lawyer, it could be out of date by the time you get home. You don't face that issue with LegalWills.co.za. If your circumstances change, simply login to your account, update your document, and sign your new Will. There is no charge for updates as long as you maintain a membership.

  • Professional reviews by a lawyer.   Our service works for the vast majority of situations, but on occasion people have unusual circumstances and need the reassurance of a legal professional's eye. We offer this as an option.

  • Our other services.   We don't just do Will writing. We offer a complete portfolio of services that will help you to plan your estate. We have the LifeLocker® executor tool, that allows you to document all of your personal details and assets, and MyVault™ that lets you upload important files. Together with our Keyholder® mechanism, you can be assured that the right information gets into the right hands at the right time (and not before).

  • Privacy and security.   We do not store any information as plain text. We do not store Wills in our database. All of your information is encrypted on our servers. Nobody can access it except you and your designated Keyholders® at the appropriate time. Furthermore, we do not share, trade or sell any of your data with third parties whatsoever.

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