While there is a cost to having a lawyer prepare a Will, and that you may think you have a ‘simple’ estate, there are many steps along the way that can ultimately cost your estate much more in litigation down the road.
Will drafting is more than a simple fill-in-the-blank exercise. It is a complex undertaking that includes understanding a testator’s family situation, debts, assets, the interplay of a number of different pieces of legislation – the Succession Law Reform Act, Family Law Act, Estates Act, Trustee Act, Insurance Act, and Income Tax Act, to name a few, along with cases that have previously established how certain terms in a Will are to be interpreted, to fully understand how their wishes can be fulfilled after they die.