How to avoid the pitfalls of DIY Wills.
DIY Will Kits offer a great legal product at a very low price. They are usually easy to follow and can be done in the comfort of your own home. You don’t have to make and keep appointments or pay the higher costs of seeing a lawyer or solicitor. If your Will is relatively straight forward and you know what you want, you can usually achieve it with a DIY Will. If you feel that your Will is complicated and beyond the confines of a DIY Will, of course we urge you to seek professional legal advice. But for most of us it is usually about making sure our children are looked after and that our assets that we have worked so hard to own go to who we wish to leave them to.
There are many DIY wills on the market today, all of which are pretty good. There are certain rules to follow to make a Will legal and DIY Wills are mostly good at achieving this. The most important thing to remember is TO FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS. We cannot stress this enough.
Have you ever bought flat pack furniture, tried to put it together and when it didn’t work, had to refer to the instructions and start all over for it to just go together perfectly? Well, making your Will is not that hard either, the key is in reading the instructions first. The information about how to write your own Will is some of the most valuable information you could have.
In one’s haste to get the job done, some people often skip the information part and don’t read it, then when they get into writing the Will itself and don’t understand a particular clause, they have to stop, leave what they are doing and try looking it up or even worse, second guess what it means and get it entirely wrong. We also suspect some people even try googling the information even though it is supplied in the DIY Kit! This is dangerous territory simply because you cannot always be sure that information on the internet is correct for you, it could just be someone else’s opinion and not actual fact, or it could be from another country. It is important that if you want to use a DIY Will Kit, you should take the time to read the kit and you can note the parts that apply to you.
Filling out the Will Form. This is usually your basic information about you, where you live and who you wish to be an executor. It is important that you read the information given about who can be an executor and the role of the executor. This information is usually followed by your assets and whom you wish to leave them to. Assets are normally broken down into different categories and reading the information in the DIY Will Kit will help you to sort your assets into these categories, then there is the residual estate. The residual estate is an important section in your Will, and you should always nominate a beneficiary here, even if you think that you have already given away all your assets to specific beneficiaries elsewhere in your Will. There are good reasons for why we mention this and again, read the information, it will make sense to you.
Executing or signing the Will. This is one of the most important parts of making out your own Will. You must sign your Will in the presence of two witnesses, and your witnesses must sign the Will to say they saw you sign the Will. You and your two witnesses must sign the Will all at the same time. Information on who can be a witness to your Will and the signing procedure are important legal requirements, so please read the information regarding signing and witnessing your Will.
Sometimes terminology can be a little ambiguous but it is important that you understand what it is you are doing, why you are doing it and how it should be done so that it is effective, serves the purpose for which it is intended and is legal.
While you may have filled out the Will Form dotting all the eye’s and crossing all the tee’s and ensuring that you have left all your assets, your Will may not be legal or valid if you do not execute it correctly. And likewise, if you do not leave all your assets properly or do not nominate a beneficiary in the residual clause but you do carry out the signing of the Will exactly, you could still die partially intestate.
The Online Australian Will Kit has been carefully created and you will find it is one of the best DIY Online Wills, it is easy to use, has instructions at every step of the way and comes with a complete information kit that is easily referred to. The Australian Will Kit contains vital information about how to make out your Online Will, it contains an example that you can use as a guide and it has an important checklist for you to follow so that you don’t miss anything. The key to making your own Will easily and legally is to read the information. All the legal jargon and the hard work has already been done for you. We cannot express how easy it is, BUT you should always read the information first! So if you are using the Online Australian Will Kit or any other DIY Online Will Kit to avoid the pitfalls, please read the instructions and the information, it’s that easy.