Last Will and Testament

What is a Last will and Testament?

A Last Will and Testament is a legal document in which a person expresses their wishes about what should happen to the assets they own and who should inherit them.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, a Last Will and Testament consisted of two separate documents containing instructions on how to distribute the testator's assets after they passed away and who should take responsibility for the guardianship of minor children and other matters.

Traditionally,

The Will governed the inheritance of any type of real estate, property, land, etc.
The Testament governed the inheritance of personal and movable property such as money, gold, jewelry, precious goods, and cars.

The need to prepare two separate documents was determined by certain laws in force at the time.

Why you should have a last will and testament

Many people try to not think about unpleasant aspects of their lives, but that does not mean that they shouldn't.

Neglecting a foreseeable problem does not make it disappear. If you think that your wishes regarding the distribution of your assets are different from how the inheritance laws would settle your estate, it is better to write your own will.

The 3 main reasons why you should have a last will and testament:

It will save your heirs a lot of time and money.
It will help to ensure that your children are looked after financially.
It will help to ensure that your wishes will be carried out.

What are the three conditions for a will to be valid?

For a will to be effective, it must be valid and respected by the court.

There are three main conditions that must be fulfilled:

The will must be in a written form.
The will must be dated and signed by the testator.
The will must be signed by two witnesses.

Of course, any rule has an exception. In this case, the exception to the rule is the so-called holographic will. To be valid, a holographic will should be entirely handwritten and signed by the testator.

How do you write a simple will for free?

A simple and very reasonable question you might have is “How do I write a simple will for free?” The simple answer is by writing a valid holographic will.

Simple, easy, and definitely free
There are certain steps you need to follow when writing your holographic will.

Catalog your assets
Catalog all the assets you want to include in the will and indicate how they are to be distributed among your beneficiaries.

Designate your beneficiaries
Write the names of your loved ones whom you want to inherit the things you will leave behind.

Name an executor of your will
This is the person named in your will who will carry out your wishes after you pass away.

Other wishes
Think about other concerns that are important to you.

Write the correct date and place and sign your last will and testament .
After you have written your will in your own handwriting and signed it, there is one final step.

Find two witnesses
These are people who are not included in your will who sign to indicate that they have witnessed your signature.

Of course, instead of looking for witnesses, there is always the option of finding a notary to notarize it. Usually, it is neither required by law nor free. So, if you want to create your own free will, it is best to draw up a holographic will.

This is achieved with the following easy steps:

Catalog assets and passwords

Designate beneficiaries and trustees

Detecting if something happens to you

Informing your loved ones about the assigned assets and passwords

Support for your loved ones

Catalog assets and passwords

You catalog the assets and passwords that you want to protect via DGLegacy, with the minimum basic information about the assets that will allow your beneficiaries to identify and locate them.

We don’t ask for confidential information such as your bank account number, the value of your stock options, or financial account numbers!

Next step

Designate beneficiaries and trustees

Beneficiaries are the people whom you appoint to be informed about the assets and passwords that you assign to them. These are usually your partner, your children or your extended family members, such as siblings and parents.

You can choose whether the beneficiaries are to be notified at the time you create the asset or only in the case of an unforeseen event.

If your beneficiaries are, for example, elderly people or children, they might not be proficient with the type of assets assigned to them. In that case, we recommend that you assign trustees for each of your assets. If something happens to you, they can help the beneficiaries to locate their assigned assets and claim ownership.

Next step

Heartbeat protocol

The custom-engineered Heartbeat protocol of DGLegacy verifies that you are OK and detects whether anything unforeseen has happened to you.

It is a safe procedure which also aims to eliminate the possibility of false detections of unforeseen events at any cost.

This is implemented through a multistep process, described on the How It Works page.

Next step

Heartbeat protocol triggering (unforeseen event detection)

If there is no confirmation in response to any of the reminder emails or phone calls, part of the Heartbeat protocol, the system detects that an unforeseen event has happened to you.

Then the notifications which you have configured into the system about the catalogued assets and the associated beneficiaries and trustees are triggered.

Next step

Support for your loved ones

Our ultimate goal is to provide you with the right service to protect your assets and secure your loved ones’ inheritance.

Our team of experts worked with a renowned law firm to offer additional protection for your loved ones through the legal package “Guide and Inform”, part of the Platinum subscription.

In the case of an unforeseen event, the law company will engage with the beneficiaries to guide and help them in the process of claiming the assets you’ve assigned to them.

DGLegacy is great for protecting my assets and my family. So far I was storing my assets’ information on a google sheet shared with my wife, but I always worried that my assets will be lost if …

Victor

Strategic Alliances Manager - dmarcian

This is a service that could make you sleep well in a time of crisis. Knowing your family is sorted out and you have every valuable under control is priceless.

Vlad

Senior Engineering Manager - VMware

Atlanta, Georgia, United States.

Finally a peace of mind. I always wanted a tool where I could see a snapshot of my assets, track them, and decide what to share, with whom and when.
Because my assets were stored in different systems …

Ingrid Henke

Founder - ARRIVA relocation services

Berlin, Germany.

Knowing that DGLegacy exists is such a relief! Up till now, I’ve put my head in the sand when it came to thinking about my assets because it was so stressful with no real solution in sight. I ca…

Alara Vural

Founder - Alara Vural Coaching

London, UK.

I have been using a secure vault and password manager for years but I always worried that my family won’t be aware of most of this information if they need it. I really like that DGLegacy combines p…

Agnieszka Michalik

Software Architect - HERE Technologies

Berlin, Germany

DGLegacy enables me to easily track and organize all my passwords and assets.
The most important thing is that the digital inheritance capability of the service ensures that loved ones will be informe…

Stella Schmitz

International HR Executive