The Most Common Mistakes That Canadians Make When It Comes to Wills

More than half of Canadian adults don't have a will which can cause additional legal costs, family conflict, and unnecessary legal battles.

Unfortunately getting a will done is very easy to procrastinate on as it can be a hassle to set up meetings with a lawyer, ask those difficult questions and be involved in all the back and forth that's required when setting up a will the traditional way by meeting with a lawyer face-to-face.

As many long time listeners of the show know, I'm a big fan of technology companies that help automate or at least make it a lot easier to do some of the more tedious but important things that we need to get done.

So in this episode, I'm excited to bring on Daniel Goldgut, a former tax and estate planning lawyer here in Canada, who together with his team over at epiloguewills.com has created a tool that you can use to get a will created in as little as 20 minutes. It's also a lot less expensive than what I paid to have our will done with a lawyer years ago before this tool existed.

We cover what the top mistakes are that Canadians do when creating a will, as well as how and when to properly update it when different events occur in your life.

We also cover designating a power of attorney and how to ensure that your will is actually legally enforceable here in Canada.

If you want to check out the tool that Daniel and his team have built you can go to epiloguewills.com, and Daniel's been kind enough to also provide Build Wealth Canada listeners with a $20 discount if you choose to use the service. To get that just use the promo code BUILDWEALTH20.

There's no affiliate or commissions for me on that, it's just a straight $20 off for all Build Wealth Canada listeners.

1. To start things off, why is having a will important, and what are the main negative consequences that we may encounter if we don't have one set up correctly?
2. What are some of the most common or most critical mistakes that Canadians make when it comes to their will? and how can we remedy them?
3. Before we go any further, for anybody that hasn't heard of you or Epilogue before, can you give us a bit of a background on what you do?
4. I saw an article on your company in the Financial Post about how Epilogue is the first online will platform to give its customers the option to include their RESPs in their wills (Registered Education Savings Plans). Can you speak to why that is important?
5. I noticed you recently launched a free tool to create a Social Media Will. Can you talk about what that is, why it's important, and where can we go to have one created for free?
6. When we hear about wills, we often hear about also designating a power of attorney. Can you explain what that is, and are there any other elements like the power of attorney that we should be aware of?
7. When we set up a will, how can we ensure that it's actually legally enforceable, in case somebody ever challenges it in court?
8. In what scenarios should we be updating our will? And what's the best way to do that?
9. Whenever we do update our will, how can we ensure that the newest version of the will is what will get enforced?
10. What are the pros and cons of using a tool like Epilogue vs hiring a lawyer directly?
11. Are there any clauses that you think are especially critical to have in a will to prevent issues and conflicts in the future?
12. How important is it to use an actual Canadian lawyer or service like yours, as opposed to using something from the US or another country, or one of those "create your own" will packages that we may see in a store or advertised on TV or online?
13. How long does it actually take to create a will using Epilogue, and for anybody that doesn't have a will or needs one updated, how can we get started?

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