Is an Online Will Legal in Wisconsin? - YouTube

Okay welcome back this is attorney Thomas B Burton and today's question

comes from Beloit Wisconsin down near the Illinois border and the writer asks

the following is it legal in Wisconsin to do an online will we would like to

fill out a basic will my husband and I are both 59 with this coronavirus we

felt we should get on that so yes I salute you I think it's a great idea for

everyone to have a will put a plan in place their plan for what they have want

to happen to their assets versus the plan the legislature has written in the

statutes and so the great thing about creating a will is you get to make all

the decisions about who will be your personal representative who are the

heirs how do you want your estate handled and how do you want it distributed in

Wisconsin you can create a legally valid will using an online service so to

answer your question I would say an online will meaning one purely online

would not be valid we need to have a paper will so you can't just create it

in the cloud and store it but you can create a will online using an online

service and then print out the final document and prepare and sign and date

it in front of two disinterested witnesses so the key here is that you

can't do it all online it has to be reduced to paper at the end and you have

to observe those will formalities which is you sign the will in front of two

disinterested witnesses not related by blood or marriage and that's what you

need to make a valid will so but in terms of actually drafting it up there

are online services you can use to do this now I always caution folks I feel I

could use one of those online will makers and make a perfectly valid

legal will in Wisconsin but that's because I am a lawyer and I understand

the questions it's asking me and why it's asking me those questions I haven't

gotten through one of these lately but I do think it's harder when you aren't

trained in this area to know why the online program is asking you a certain

question if you watch some of my other videos you'll see some questions related

to this and part of the benefit to working with a lawyer is we can have

that conversation give-and-take and I can ask you well what are you really

trying to accomplish here and then I help you design a plan to meet those

goals whereas the program can't ask you a follow-up question like that so you

can do the online will the other thing I would tell you is if you don't have the

funds to hire a lawyer the legislature has created a basic will

in the Wisconsin Statutes you can go to the statutes just Google that was got

some basic will and you could print that out and sign it and it has all the

statutory language right in there so if you didn't want to attempt the online

will maker you could do that or I always recommend if you can afford it working

with a qualified estate planning attorney many attorneys do flat fee

rates on estate planning like I do so that you can know the cost upfront and

in fact at my office right now we're doing drive-thru will signings during

the social distancing part of coronavirus because we know it's on a

lot of people's minds so again I don't want to discourage you at all great job

working on this and you can use one of these programs I would just make sure

it's a reputable one and that your Will conforms with Wisconsin Statutes and

again make sure you observe the right formalities signing and dating the will

in front of two disinterested witnesses to make sure when you're all done you

have a legally valid document that will hold up in court so great question and

thank you for asking.