How To Write A Living Will

MyLivingWill™- Specify Your Health Care Advance Directives

We have removed the obstacles to writing a Living Will and Power of Attorney for Health Care.  It is convenient, low cost, and simple. The MyLivingWill™ service steps you through a series of questions in a "wizard" format.  It will ask you about your wishes regarding different types of treatment under different conditions, and allow you to set up your Advance Directives --- your Living Will (U.S., Canada, England & Wales) and Power of Attorney for Health Care (U.S. & Canada only).  All questions are written in plain language, so you don't have to be a legal expert to create your own Advance Directives.  You simply answer the questions about your medical care wishes and we automatically and instantly format a document that forms the basis of a legal Living Will and Power of Attorney for Health Care, custom-made for your local jurisdiction.  If you live in the U.S., Canada, England or Wales, the documents can then be printed and signed in front of witnesses to become legally binding documents.  There is also plenty of supplementary information to help answer all of your questions.

A Living Will gives you some say in the way you will be treated before you die, in a situation where death is otherwise inevitable.  This can be used in two ways --- to put a swift end to intolerable suffering, or to endorse the use of experimental treatment to try and save your life if at all possible.  Most people die in hospitals and often this is after receiving treatment administered in an effort to prolong a person's life.  Medical staff are duty bound to use everything within the powers of modern medicine to keep a patient alive as long as possible, and within those powers there are regulations to be followed.  Medical staff are obliged to preserve a patient's life without necessarily considering the financial or emotional concerns of the patient and loved ones.

A Power of Attorney for Health Care allows you to nominate a Healthcare Representative who can make health care decisions for you when you are incapacitated and unable to make decisions for yourself.  It can be used to complement your Living Will. This service is available in the U.S. and Canada only. In the U.K., government forms must be used.

The most common use of a Living Will is to express your desire for a voluntary passive euthanasia.  Simply put, this means that medical staff should not artificially preserve your life under specific circumstances which are determined by you.  In addition, your Living Will or "healthcare directive" can express your views on the health care that you wish to receive if you were ever in a permanent coma.

Make unlimited updates free of charge.  Don't pay a lawyer every time you need to update your Advance Directives.  We allow your Living Will and Power of Attorney for Health Care to be kept securely online at ExpatLegalWills.com so that you can make unlimited updates for as long as you are a member here.  Not only will you always have legal documents, but they will always be kept up to date.

You can still have it reviewed by a lawyer.  If you wish, we can arrange for your Advance Directives --- Living Will and Power of Attorney for Health Care --- to be reviewed by a lawyer, who will check the documents for consistency and completeness.

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MyLivingWill™- Frequently Asked Questions

The MyLivingWill™ service steps you through a simple question and answer wizard, formats your answers into a readable format, allows you to store your information securely online and allows you to make unlimited updates.  You can then designate your own personal "Keyholders®", who with their unique ID can unlock your Advance Directives at the appropriate time.

The complete pricing structure is available on our Products & Prices page.

According to current laws in most jurisdictions, in order to be legal documents your Advance Directives must be signed in the presence of two witnesses. However, "electronic signature" laws are moving rapidly and we are closely monitoring these laws to support the future electronic notarization of documents, or even the electronic signature of your Advance Directives.  It is only a matter of time before this becomes standard practice in preparing legal documents.  According to today's laws you will need to print the Advance Directives you create with the MyLivingWill™ service and have them signed according to the laws in your area.  More details about this process are available on the help pages within the wizard. 

Although the unsigned versions of your Advance Directives stored online at ExpatLegalWills.com are not legal documents, if you wish you can allow one or more of your designated Keyholders® to have access to the documents that you have created here at ExpatLegalWills.com.  This could be important if your legally signed copies cannot be located.  In this situation, your ExpatLegalWills.com documents can still provide some guidance to a loving family, as they can understand your wishes regarding your health care if you are unable to communicate these wishes yourself.

If properly signed according to the laws in your area, your Advance Directives are legal documents that cannot be over-ridden by your family.

Unlike a Will, a Living Will comes into effect before you die.  In particular, a Living Will comes into effect if you are mentally incapacitated (e.g. in a coma) or your death has become inevitable, and you are unable to express your wishes yourself.

It expresses any wishes you have for a right to die with dignity, or if you have some views on the health care that you wish to receive.

You can choose to have a 1-year, 10-year, 25-year or Life membership at ExpatLegalWills.com, during which time you can make as many updates or amendments to your Advance Directives as you wish at no extra charge.  Details of the membership packages available can be found on our Products & Prices page.

Stepping through the question and answer wizard for the MyLivingWill™ service could take less than ten minutes, particularly if you are already comfortable with the decisions that you wish to make.  However, some questions may require some thought, and there are some issues that you may need to discuss with your family and loved ones. 

When working through the MyLivingWill™ service you do not have to complete the document in one sitting.  You can answer a couple of questions and then store these wishes securely online here at ExpatLegalWills.com until you have a few more minutes to answer additional questions.  If you wish, you can spend many weeks or months making unlimited updates until you are happy with your final results, at which point you could have your final copy reviewed and signed.

All of your information stored at ExpatLegalWills.com is safe and secure.  Your information is so highly encrypted that nobody has access to this information other than yourself and your trusted Keyholders using their randomly generated personal key.  Even the owners and administrators of ExpatLegalWills.com are not able to access your information due to the software design and encryption methods used.

Note, however, that some services require temporary decryption of a member's documents as part of the operation of providing that service.  For example, if the member wants to have their Will reviewed by one of our legal professionals, or wants to have their documents printed and mailed to them, then the software will automatically decrypt these documents as part of the member's instructions to have these services performed.

All data passing from your computer to ExpatLegalWills.com is authenticated and encrypted using 256-bit "SSL encryption".  This is the most advanced level of encryption available today, and it means that any information sent from your computer is scrambled in a way which makes it completely unintelligible if intercepted.  When you are on a secure section within the web site, a padlock will appear on your web browser.  This is your assurance that the encryption is in place and that you are communicating across a secure link.

Furthermore, ExpatLegalWills.com uses an industry standard high security streaming-encryption algorithm known as "RSA" to encrypt all of your information before it is stored online.  To give you a feeling for the level of security provided by this encryption, it has been estimated that with the most efficient algorithms known to date, it would take a computer operating at 1 million instructions per second over 300 quintillion years (that's 3 with 20 zeros behind it!) to break the encryption. That's several trillion times longer than the age of the Earth.

All of our data is securely stored in a highly encrypted format on database servers. To protect against catastrophic data loss, daily backups are performed on each of our servers. Hence, if any one of our servers experienced technical difficulties, the data would not be at risk.

Furthermore, physical protection of our primary systems includes:

  • Fire detection and fire suppression systems with dry pipe pre-action sprinkler systems
  • N + 1 redundant power supplies, providing dual power feeds and backup batteries, water coolant systems and generators
  • N + 1 redundant climate control, providing primary and backup chiller units, cooling towers, and water storage
  • Local network operations center (NOC) for monitoring all data center operations
  • 24x7 monitoring and support of network connection and server availability
  • 24x7 uniformed guard service with interior and exterior closed-circuit television surveillance
  • Electronic access at all data center entrances, including biometric hand scanners
  • Electronic key management systems and individually keyed cabinets

As you can see, we take the security and privacy of all of our member information very seriously.

Services such as MyFuneral™, MyLifeLocker™, MyVault™, and MyMessages™ do not create legal documents and make no assumptions about your country of residence. 

In the US, Canada, England and Wales, we have worked extensively to ensure that the legal documents created by the MyWill™, MyExpatWill™ and MyLivingWill™ services are up to date with the laws in all of the states in the United States and the provinces in Canada, including: Alabama, Alaska, Alberta, Arizona, Arkansas, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Manitoba, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward Island, Québec, Rhode Island, Saskatchewan, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Yukon.  Hence, these services can be used to generate legal documents in any state in the United States with the exception of Louisiana, and any Canadian Province or Territory, and in England and Wales in the United Kingdom.

Furthermore, the MyPowerOfAttorney™ service is available for all States in the United States except Louisiana, and for all Provinces and Territories in Canada. In the UK, power of attorney forms are provided free of charge by the government.

Note that even in unsupported areas, there is value in stepping through the wizards provided in these services in preparation for a consultation with an attorney.  It is strongly recommended that residents outside of the above supported states/provinces/countries seek legal advice even after completing the wizards. Local laws in these unsupported areas have not been considered in the structure of the legal documents.

If you have any doubts about the legal standing of any documents in your jurisdiction, feel free to seek legal counsel in your area to have your documents reviewed.

There is a considerable amount of information included in the on-line help of the MyLivingWill™   wizard.  This will answer most of the common questions regarding the steps included in creating your own Advance Directives. 

For information about the other services available, or about ExpatLegalWills.com in general, you can browse this website or send an email to [email protected].  We will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

 

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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.
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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.

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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.

There are no other payments required to prepare your legal Will. You can have a legal Will in your hands for $49.95USD 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 $69.00USD. 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 $9.95USD, 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 $49.95USD. 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. $11.95USD will give you one additional year of updates, or you can purchase multiple years: 5 years at $29.95USD, 10 years at $39.95USD, 25 years at $79.95USD ($3.20USD 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 25 years of operation.

So, in all likelihood, you will be able to simply login to your account and pay $11.95USD 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, if you reside in Canada, the United States, England or Wales.

A Will covers the distribution of the assets that you own, often those that are located in your home country.

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. 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 legal documents 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 Expatriate Will and other documents 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 documents. We allow your documents 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, the United States and the United Kingdom 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.

  • The Keyholder® Advantage. You can take advantage of our unique messaging service which allows you to describe the exact location of your documents 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 documents.  Or we can send you simple email reminders, no more than once a year, to remind you to consider updating your documents if any significant changes have occurred in your life.  

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

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