Make Sure to Finish your Milk Will
In our personal and professional lives, we deal with deadlines all the time. Many of the things we do on a regular basis have firm due dates — meeting a client’s timeline, arranging financing for a real estate closing, filing taxes by April 30th, or even finishing the milk before it expires. And although due dates can put stress and pressure on us, they’re actually a good thing! Having a hard deadline makes it more likely that a task will actually get finished.
Compare the list of things above to tasks that don’t have firm due dates, like getting in shape or going through the boxes in the basement. These things are often much harder to complete because they have no hard deadlines. Also, there are usually no obvious consequences for not completing these things. When it comes to these tasks, we are accountable only to ourselves, and so it’s easy to say, “I’ll do it later”.
Okay, now think about your estate planning. Specifically, whether or not you have a Will in place. If you’re like two-thirds of Canadian adults, you either have no Will at all or you have an outdated Will that does not reflect your current life circumstances.
When it comes to having an up-to-date Will, there is certainly a hard deadline — it is literally the ultimate expiry date. And there are many negative consequences that can arise from dying “intestate” (the legal term for dying without a Will.) These include delays and increased costs to administer your estate, family fights, and having your assets end up in the hands of people you don’t want. So, why are there so many people who still haven’t made a Will?
Up until recently, the only way to create a proper Will was to visit an estate planning lawyer. Unfortunately, the time, cost, and complexity associated with that process are some of the main reasons people haven’t completed any basic planning. But, like many other things these days, a Will can now be created online.
Epilogue is a company started by two former tax and estate planning lawyers. Its mission is to give all Canadians the tools and resources they need to create their own Wills in a way that’s simple and affordable. Epilogue’s online questionnaire takes about 20 minutes to complete and the platform will automatically generate a Will, complete with a detailed set of instructions for how to make your Will legally binding.
The next time you’re checking the date on your milk, think about the other important expiry dates you need to worry about and take a few minutes to complete your Will.
Epilogue is pleased to provide clients of Nick Godfrey 15% off their Wills and Powers of Attorney. Just visit epiloguewills.com to get started and apply the promo code GODFREY15 at checkout.