Canadian Armed Forces Member is First Canadian to Have a Completely Digital Will

Canadian history was made in British Columbia at 12:01 this morning as Royce Burningham became the first person in Canada to have an electronically signed and witnessed Will through a partnership between LegalWills.ca and Syngrafii.

ESQUIMALT, BC, Dec. 1, 2021 /CNW/ - Canadian companies LegalWills.ca and Syngrafii pooled their resources together in order to prepare for Bill 21, an update to British Columbian law allowing remote witnessing and electronic signing and storage of Wills in the province, and now a local military member is the very first person in Canada to have finished the process completely online.

Burningham, along with any other British Columbia resident, now has an "E-sign" option at LegalWills.ca. At 12:01 PST this morning, he met with his two witnesses in a virtual signing room powered by Syngrafii. He had already completed his Will online at LegalWills.ca, and once it was virtually signed, it became legal - making it the very first electronic Will in the country.

"The ability to sign online is a great idea in our modern age and really appeals as people are not always able to meet up in person. As well, I like knowing I have a digital copy permanently stored for me. An easy process that allows for peace of mind!" shares Burningham about his experience creating an electronic Will.  

"Although we've been planning our services (such as our Keyholder service and MyVault) around the idea of one day being able to digitally sign and store your estate planning documents, the pandemic and recent natural disasters highlighted a much needed update to Canadian law. These documents are incredibly important and need to be accessible to every Canadian, no matter their situation. Take Royce for example, as a new military member in a new province, he may not know locals he can entrust with witnessing his Will. His service comes first and our legal system should support that, and now it finally does." says LegalWills.ca co-founder and CEO Tim Hewson. 

For the month of December, a portion of sales of LegalWills.ca's products in British Columbia will go toward a local mudslide/flood relief program.

For more information please visit: www.legalwills.ca/blog/digital-will/.

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 visit https://www.legalwills.ca/.

About Syngrafii
Syngrafii provides a suite of next generation eSignature tools that deliver the security of ink and paper globally, with a range of fully compliant solutions. Syngrafii's patented video signing and eSignature solutions deliver a connected world where people, enterprise and government can immediately process original documents, signatures, and transactions across digital channels anywhere, anytime, in multiple languages. For more information visit https://www.syngrafii.com/.

SOURCE LegalWills

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]. For more information about Syngrafii, interview requests, hi-res visuals or media inquiries, please contact us by phone at 1-905-379-1893 or email [email protected].