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LegalWills.ca Bookstore

Our association with Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk allows us to offer you a special selection of books related to funeral, estate and financial planning.  Many titles are offered at a special discount of 10% to 30% off list price.

LegalWills.ca highly recommends the following books:

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The Complete Book of Wills, Estates & Trusts
by Alexander A. Bove

This is an excellent guide to the process of creating a will, with well written descriptions and well constructed examples. There is a lot of information in this book that can either be read from cover to cover, or subsequently used as a reference for specific issues. The book provides clear explanations of legal terms and practices and many asset-saving tips highlighted by entertaining and illustrative stories. Readers are told how to: Make a will, Settle an estate, Make a claim against an estate, Contest a will, Create a living trust, and Avoid probate and taxes.  This is the only legal guide readers will ever need to ensure that their money and holdings remain in the family.

For more information and pricing details on this book, select a country:
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The Family Fight: Planning to Avoid It
by Barry Fish, Les Kotzer

This book focuses on how to organize your affairs so that your family will not be left confused and unprepared in the event of your unexpected incapacity or death. It examines the careful thought that must be devoted to the various components of your Will in order to avoid fighting within your family after you die. Discussions regarding the components of a Will extend to a number of issues including executors, dealing with the personal items which you treasure, guardianship of your young children and a number of other important matters.

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Beyond the Grave: The Right Way and the Wrong Way of Leaving Money to Your Children (And Others)
by Gerald M. Condon, Jeffrey L. Condon

This is one of the few guides that is based on years of case studies from estate planning professionals. It is not a "how to" guide.  Instead, the process of estate planning is made more tangible by using real examples from real family situations. It touches on the emotional aspects of what can go wrong when one has misplaced assumptions. The number of examples alone is enough to make one think about the need to be clear in one's plans. The book covers such possibilities as "protecting" the inheritance from one's child's spouse, preventing squabbles over inherited property, selecting trustees or guardians, avoiding disputes between second spouses and children of one's first marriage, leaving money for pets, etc. With good sense, humor, and authority, the authors provide a thorough look at inheritance planning with an eye toward maintaining good, stable family relations well after the estate has been settled.

For more information and pricing details on this book, select a country:
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Everything You Need to Know about Estate Planning
by Kevin Wark

This book is focused on estate planning, how to organize finances, and how to make the most of one's assets and protect them for one's beneficiaries. The advice is likely to be taken by a person with sound financial plans and goals today, and who is looking to extend this financial astuteness beyond the grave. The information on financial planning is quite comprehensive and is targeted at people with good information on existing retirement and savings vehicles. Featuring worksheets and a glossary of terms, Everything You Need to Know about Estate Planning is an indispensable and painless guide to planning for the future.

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The Canadian Guide to Will & Estate Planning: Everything you need to know today to protect your wealth and your family tomorrow
by Douglas A Gray

A comprehensive, readable description of the Canadian estate planning process. It clearly explains the importance of planning one's estate and guides readers through the process of calculating one's assets. It has excellent information on the structure of wills, power of attorneys and living wills as well as an overview of the different types of trusts. A significant portion of the book is devoted to estate planning, taxation, probate, insurance and the most effective ways to protect one's assets from the taxman. This book covers a number of specific Canadian issues such as vacation properties and Canadian laws of small business and farming. There are also a number of useful checklists, forms and sources of information for easy reference.

For more information and pricing details on this book, select a country:
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The Executor's Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Settling an Estate for Personal Representatives, Administrators, and Beneficiaries
by Theodore E. Hughes, David Klein

An executor is a person appointed in a will to carry out the instructions and wishes of the deceased. Often the tasks involved are cumbersome, complicated, and time-consuming. This Handbook outlines the duties and responsibilities of the executor and provides a walking tour of the procedures that settle an estate. There is no skimping on the basics here. The authors understand what a first-time executor needs to know and present that information in plain English. Coverage includes a thorough explanation of what an executor does, instruction on dealing with the deceased's assets and liabilities, and advice on administering probate. In addition to the competent, methodical text, they offer tables of state income tax rates, intestacy laws, state-by-state probate requirements, and executor's fees.

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What to Do When Someone Dies: A Legal, Financial & Practical Guide
by Milton Berry Scott

This book is a clear, concise guide to organizing personal and financial affairs so those responsible will be able to handle all the necessary details following a death with ease. This book will be useful to anyone who is dealing with someone's estate and also to anyone who wants to organize his or her own concerns to assist those who will take care of them.

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Be Not Afraid: Overcoming The Fear Of Death
by Johann Christoph Arnold, Madeleine L'Engle

This book addresses fears that every person faces: fear of illness, aging, death, and loss, fear of vulnerability, and fear of suffering. A councilor who has worked with the dying for three decades, the author knows that the biggest challenges in life are the ones that won't fit the script, and which each of us therefore has to deal with in our own unique way. Although the title of this book suggests that it is about overcoming the fear of death, it is overwhelmingly about life and living with joy and faith, no matter what meets us. Through a treasure trove of personal stories that make the book near impossible to put down, "Be Not Afraid" meets the age-old human fear of death head on, with a power and intensity that leaves one changed. If you want a true guide for the rest of your life, read this book.

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Search for Other Books

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In the U.S., from Amazon.com:
 

More books on:
     Wills, Trusts, Estates
     Estate Taxes
     Executors, Administrators
     Funeral Planning
     Death, Bereavement

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In Canada, from Amazon.ca:
 

More books on:
     Wills, Trusts, Estates
     Estate Taxes
     Executors, Administrators
     Funeral Planning
     Death, Bereavement

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In the U.K., from Amazon.co.uk:
 

More books on:
     Wills, Trusts, Estates
     Estate Taxes
     Executors, Administrators
     Funeral Planning
     Death, Bereavement

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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.

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.

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Frequently Asked Questions

There is no requirement to use the services of a lawyer or notary public to prepare your own estate planning documents, including your Last Will and Testament.

The law that defines the legality of a Will is written specifically for each Province, State and Country, but in summary the law requires that the Will is written on a piece of paper and signed in the presence of two witnesses who cannot be beneficiaries to the Will.

Lawyers can certainly help you to prepare your Will, but everybody has a legal right to write their own Will. If you create a document using our service, it must be printed, signed and witnessed according to our instructions, and then it becomes a legal Last Will and Testament.
Quite simply, because we do not provide you with legal advice.

We are giving you direct access to the same software that lawyers use to prepare their documents, but you are doing it yourself. However, if you need custom clauses written to cover an unusual situation, we cannot do that, and we recommend that you seek legal advice. For example, if you have a child with special needs, they would need a trust written for their inheritance. We don't do that.

In most cases, a document written using our service will be word-for-word identical to one prepared by a lawyer.

For a more thorough explanation, please read our blog article: The Cost of a Will in Canada – Explained.

There are no other payments required to prepare your legal Will. You can have a legal Will in your hands for $49.95CAD 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 $69.00CAD. 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. (Currently not available in Ontario.)

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 $9.95CAD, but again, most people do not need this option.

We also offer other services like MyLifeLocker™, a Financial Power of Attorney, 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 $49.95CAD. 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. $11.95CAD will give you one additional year of updates, or you can purchase multiple years: 5 years at $29.95CAD, 10 years at $39.95CAD, 25 years at $79.95CAD ($3.20CAD 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 $11.95CAD 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.)

Yes.  A Power of Attorney (also known as a Power of Attorney for Finances) and Living Will (also known as a Power of Attorney for Health Care), are very important documents that should be created and updated at the same time as your Will.

This website allows you to create a Will, Expatriate Will, Power of Attorney and Living Will .
Here are just a few differences:

  • We have designed our legal document creation services to be of the best quality available today.    We have evaluated many existing do-it-yourself kits and web-based services, including several of the most popular Canadian legal will kits. We were shocked by the poor quality, limited instructions, and low value for money that many of these do-it-yourself kits provide consumers. 

  • Incredible value for money.   Our membership pricing model allows us to provide you with the most value for your money at prices that are unprecedented in the legal industry. We worked with lawyers to bring you this service, and we paid for their legal services so you don't have to. 

  • Plain language help and instructions.  In addition, all of our services provide you with complete instructions and answer your questions in everyday language, free of legal industry jargon.  We have developed our services based on the requirements of the public, not dictated by the legal profession.  Our wizards, help and information are also designed to be the best on the market and are kept up-to-date on an ongoing basis.  

  • Create your Will from the comfort of your own home.  No lawyer required.  Our unique approach allows you to make use of the ultimate convenience of the Internet to write your Will at your own pace, online, and to make changes online at any time free of charge. 

  • Free unlimited updates.  Don't pay a lawyer every time you need to update your Will. We allow your Will to be kept securely online so that you can make free unlimited updates for as long as you are a member.

  • You can still have it reviewed by a lawyer. We have worked with lawyers in Canada to bring you these services and to ensure that they are of the highest quality. But if you wish, we can still arrange for your documents to be reviewed by one of our lawyers, who will check the documents for consistency and completeness. (Currently not available in Ontario.)

  • The Keyholder® Advantage. You can take advantage of our unique messaging service which allows you to describe the exact location of your Will and to provide a detailed list of assets for your Executor. All for no extra charge. When you pass away, let us worry about communicating this information to the people you specify. There is simply no other company that provides such a complete and convenient service to their customers. For more information, read about The Keyholder® Advantage .

  • We employ a strong focus on protecting the privacy and security of your information.   We use industry standard encryption algorithms for storing all of your private information, and the design of our services ensures that the contents of your information are made available to the specific people designated by yourself, and only at the appropriate time. 

  • Keep informed and up to date.  If you wish, we can inform you by email about any changes in legislation which may have occurred in your jurisdiction that may require changes to your Will.  Or we can send you simple email reminders, no more than once a year, to remind you to consider updating your Will if any significant changes have occurred in your life.  

Other websites and do-it-yourself kits simply do not compare.

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The cost of a Will in Canada – explained

Two of the most frequently asked questions we receive at LegalWills.ca are:

1. How come your Wills are so cheap?
2. Why are your Wills so expensive?

In this article, we will discuss the cost of a Will. We will explain the different ways to prepare a Will, why each approach costs what it does, what you get and don't get when preparing a Will in a certain way.
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Even if your plans for estate distribution are simple and you do not have many assets, it is still much easier for the people that you leave behind to work with a Will than to resolve the estate of a person who has died intestate (without a Will).

If you do not feel that you have significant assets now, remember that your Will only comes into effect when you die, not now, and you cannot possibly predict how large your estate will be when your Will is required.
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Making a Will in Canada – the Complete Guide to your Options

Your Last Will and Testament allows you to speak after you have passed away. It does absolutely nothing and has no powers whatsoever all the time you are alive.

But as soon as you die your Will has two key functions: it allows you to make key appointments and it allows you to describe the distribution of your assets. These assets include money, possessions, houses, investments, everything that you own.

Making a Will is one of the most important responsibilities of every adult, and it should not be put off until a distant day in the future when you are "old".
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