It's a good idea to review your legal documents regularly, especially after a big life change. Keeping your documents up to date ensures your wishes are clearly reflected.
When should you update your legal document?
You may make changes to your legal documents many times over your lifetime, or you may never need to update it. In general, you might want to update your legal document if any of the following apply:
You experience a major life event: For example, a marriage, divorce, birth of a child, a new pet, or death of someone named in your documents. In most provinces, getting married automatically invalidates your will unless it includes a "contemplation of marriage" clause - so you'll need to update it to reflect your new marital status.
You want to change a key role: Such as your executor, power of attorney, or guardian.
You move to a new province: Legal requirements may vary, so it's worth reviewing your document for local compliance. Willful documents adhere to provincial legislation, so you can easily update your will.
You acquire or sell major assets: Only if you want to leave those assets are as a specific gift. If your assets are not listed specifically in your will, instead of updating your will, update your asset list.
Your wishes change: If you’d like to revise who receives what or how your affairs are handled.
Even if nothing major has changed, reviewing your will or power of attorney every 2-3 years is a good habit.
With Willful, you can easily update your documents by logging into your account, making your changes, and re-printing and re-signing them according to your province’s legal requirements.
How to update your legal document
You can update your will and powers of attorney documents anytime with Willful. These updates are included in your package with no additional fees. You might need to pay additional fees to get your documents signed and witnessed again or if you require notarization.
All you have to do is log in to your Willful account and make any changes you'd like, and then:
Reprint or download the updated documents.
Follow the provided instructions to make them legally valid.
If you update any section of your will, print/download a new copy in full and follow the signing and witnessing instructions again.
Previous copies are nullified by your most recent wet-signed copy.