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PSA: Dying intestate is a P.I.T.A.- take care of your “final arrangements”.
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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8926821" data-attributes="member: 6988941"><p>Generally in common law jurisdictions (basically the Angloshere) a will just needs to be signed by a testator (of adult age and with the necessary mental capacity) and a witness. The witness need not be a lawyer. In many common law jurisdictions a handwritten will does not require a witness. However the witness is not just something courts made up to make wills fail, it's about verifying that the will is authentic, and part of what you get from a lawyer's service is a professional who will attest to the documents authenticity. I can't speak for the requirements of civil law jurisdictions on this front, they love notaries a lot more than the common law ones. My understanding is that your country of Canada does not generally require professionally prepared wills, though I can not speak to all jurisdictions within Canada, or to how well non-professionally prepared wills generally hold up in a Canadian court.</p><p></p><p>Check the requirements in your jurisdiction, and hire a lawyer if you can afford one. There are many form wills online, and these are often appropriate to the average person's needs, but make sure they are created specifically for your jurisdiction. If you choose to not use an attorney then it is harder to be certain that your intentions will actually be written in a way a court will recognize, and the main skill lawyers have in terms of drafting wills is practice in making things clear and unambiguous to a court of law, including under unforeseen circumstances.</p><p></p><p>Once again I'll reiterate what I said in a prior post that just making clear your intentions to family while you're still alive helps verify the authenticity of a will consistent with those intentions, and makes the will more likely to go unchallenged by family, whether it was created with the assistance of a lawyer or not.</p><p></p><p>I am not an attorney, but I am an American law school graduate who briefly worked as a lawyer in a practice that never dealt with any wills. Impute on me whatever biases from that background you must.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8926821, member: 6988941"] Generally in common law jurisdictions (basically the Angloshere) a will just needs to be signed by a testator (of adult age and with the necessary mental capacity) and a witness. The witness need not be a lawyer. In many common law jurisdictions a handwritten will does not require a witness. However the witness is not just something courts made up to make wills fail, it's about verifying that the will is authentic, and part of what you get from a lawyer's service is a professional who will attest to the documents authenticity. I can't speak for the requirements of civil law jurisdictions on this front, they love notaries a lot more than the common law ones. My understanding is that your country of Canada does not generally require professionally prepared wills, though I can not speak to all jurisdictions within Canada, or to how well non-professionally prepared wills generally hold up in a Canadian court. Check the requirements in your jurisdiction, and hire a lawyer if you can afford one. There are many form wills online, and these are often appropriate to the average person's needs, but make sure they are created specifically for your jurisdiction. If you choose to not use an attorney then it is harder to be certain that your intentions will actually be written in a way a court will recognize, and the main skill lawyers have in terms of drafting wills is practice in making things clear and unambiguous to a court of law, including under unforeseen circumstances. Once again I'll reiterate what I said in a prior post that just making clear your intentions to family while you're still alive helps verify the authenticity of a will consistent with those intentions, and makes the will more likely to go unchallenged by family, whether it was created with the assistance of a lawyer or not. I am not an attorney, but I am an American law school graduate who briefly worked as a lawyer in a practice that never dealt with any wills. Impute on me whatever biases from that background you must. [/QUOTE]
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