BC leading the way with e-signature law for electronic Wills: Why other provinces should follow suit

Being able to electronically sign your legal Will could make your life easier but this is a luxury only available to residents of British Columbia since new e-signature laws came into effect in 2021.

VANCOUVER, BC, May 5, 2022 /CNW/ - Electronic Wills have been widely applauded and recognized for their convenience, affordability, and ease when it comes to the often-confusing Will writing process. End-to-end electronic legal Will writing services such as LegalWills.ca walk you through the entire process while helping safeguard against forging — a downside to paper documents. LegalWills.ca is also the only company who include a full video recording of the e-signing and store the recording. 

Creating and updating a Will through an online Will writing service (Will writing services in Canada start at $39.95 at LegalWills.ca) has made it feasible for young people to take on estate planning earlier than they traditionally have. A recent LegalWills.ca survey found that the number of Canadians aged 18-24 with an up-to-date Will more than doubled from 2016 to 2021.

While the news is positive that more people are creating their legal Will, an electronic signature makes the process fully digital. Yet only one province in Canada has made e-signatures valid for signing electronic legal Wills. The Law Society of BC has recently granted a number of electronic Will writing services such as LegalWills.ca their seal of approval for using e-signatures and digital storage solutions. Months after British Columbia became the first province in Canada to put this important law in place, other jurisdictions have yet to follow suit.

"Losing a loved one can be a terribly sad time filled with intense emotion and chaos. It's a time to grieve and process, not search for documents. Electronic Wills can ease this process," says Tim Hewson, Founder and CEO of LegalWills.ca.

Beyond the convenience that comes with e-signing a legal Will, it also puts to rest any concerns around forging or losing documents. Paper documents are notoriously easy to fraudulently sign and date. Yet when the laws were written 150 years ago, paper was the best option. Today, electronic Wills can be safely stored in the cloud, solving lost Will woes that often occur at the time of losing a loved one.

When it comes to legal Wills, electronic ones are safer, and it's about time for the rest of Canada to adopt e-signature laws that open more doors for Canadians to secure their future.

About LegalWills
LegalWills.ca is the first and leading online estate planning platform in Canada, having created over half a million estate planning documents in the past 20 years. In 2020 alone, over 100,000 estate planning documents were created by customers in all 13 provinces and territories across Canada. Since the start of the pandemic, LegalWills.ca has given away over 7,000 estate planning documents free of charge to front line health care and education workers across Canada.

For more information please visit: www.legalwills.ca.

For more information about LegalWills, interview requests, hi-res visuals or media inquiries, please contact us by phone at 1-888-660-9455 or email [email protected].

SOURCE LegalWills

Tim Hewson, LegalWills.ca, 2420 Bank Street, Suite 45, Ottawa, Ontario, K1V 8S1, www.legalwills.ca, [email protected]