> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thecanadareport.ca/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # LegalWills.ca Review: I Finally Made My Will Online in BC - URL: https://www.thecanadareport.ca/legalwills-ca-review/ - Published: 2026-08-31T23:49:30.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-31T23:49:30.000Z - Description: I'd been putting off writing a will for six years. Here's what it was actually like to do it online in British Columbia — the cost, the time, and the part that trips people up. - Author: Steve Cogbill - Tags: Canadian Guides, British Columbia I had been meaning to write a will for about six years. Not in an anxious way — in the way you mean to clean the garage. I knew I should. I had a vague sense it involved a lawyer, an appointment, and a number I wouldn't enjoy. So it stayed on the list, year after year, quietly moving down. Then my son was born this August, and the list reordered itself. **The verdict:** [LegalWills.ca](https://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=nFpj5SRQZyQ&offerid=1059710.9&type=3&subid=verdict&ref=thecanadareport.ca) is worth it if your situation is ordinary and your real obstacle is that you've never started. You're better off with a lawyer if you own a business, a farm, or property in more than one country — and to their credit, they'll tell you that themselves before you pay. Here's what the whole thing was actually like. ## Full disclosure, because it matters here LegalWills.ca gave me a code that covered their Ultimate Package for a couple — a $199.95 CAD value — so that I could go through the process and write about it. I also earn a commission if you sign up through the links in this post. That's two separate financial connections and you should know about both before you read another word. That covered the cost of getting in the door. It didn't buy the verdict — you'll notice below that I point most readers toward a cheaper package than the one they gave me, because that's the one I'd actually recommend. ## Quick verdict **Worth it if you:** - Have a straightforward estate — a home, some accounts, a spouse, kids - Want a will, power of attorney and living will done in one sitting - Have been putting this off and need the barrier to be low enough to actually clear - Live in BC or Ontario, where the digital signing options are the most flexible in the country **Better off with a lawyer if you:** - Own shares in a private corporation or run a family business - Own a farm - Have a dependant with special needs who'll need a trust - Own property in more than one country - Are planning to disinherit a spouse or child, or expect the will to be contested **What it actually costs:** $49.95 CAD for a will on its own, $99.95 for the package that adds power of attorney and a living will, and 40% off for your spouse's separate account. First year of updates included. ## What I actually did I completed five documents in one sitting: a will, a financial power of attorney, a living will, funeral wishes, and their Life Locker records section. I did the same for my wife using their mirror will feature. Total time, start to finish: **about 75 minutes.** The will itself — the actual legal document — took roughly twenty of those. The other 55 minutes went to the power of attorney, the living will, and the two sections that aren't legal documents at all. I mention the number because it's useful to know going in. Twenty minutes is a fair estimate for the will on its own if you already know your answers. Budget more than that if you're doing the full package, or if you're the sort of person who's going to stop and think about a few of these. The stopping and thinking turned out to be the point. More on that shortly. ## It asks whether you should be there before it takes your money Before checkout, the wizard runs a short screen. Do you have a child with special needs? Do you own shares in a private corporation, like a family business? Is anyone other than your spouse or children financially dependent on you? Are you comfortable filling out forms online? I own shares in a private corporation, so I hit one of these. That gave me pause, and it should have. It's the same corporate wrinkle that made me fussy about [which accounting software actually handles a Canadian small business](https://www.thecanadareport.ca/best-accounting-software-canada/), and it's usually the point where the cheap generic option stops being enough. This is unusual, and it's the first thing that made me trust the service. Their own documentation is blunt about it: they don't provide legal advice, and if you need a custom clause — a trust for a child with special needs is the example they use — they can't write one and they recommend you see a lawyer. A company optimizing purely for conversions does not put a list of reasons not to buy in front of the buy button. ## What 75 minutes actually looks like The will runs through thirteen sections. Personal details, family status, guardians for minor children, executor and alternates, specific gifts, the residue of the estate, backup plans if a beneficiary predeceases you, trusts for beneficiaries under the age of majority. The questions are in plain language. There's no legal vocabulary you need to bring with you, and each screen has help text explaining why it's asking. It genuinely does feel like filing your taxes online, which sounds like an insult and isn't — that's exactly the right level of friction for a document this important. Then you get to the living will, and the software stops being the hard part. My wife and I spent close to ten minutes on a single screen: whether you want your life prolonged to the greatest extent possible, or maximum pain relief even if it might hasten death. There is no help text for that. It's just two people who've been married a while, in their kitchen, having a conversation they had somehow never once had in all those years. Then organ donation. Then whether you'd rather die at home or in a hospice. Then a blank text box inviting you to write a final message to your family, which I sat in front of for a while and did not fill in. Those are decisions somebody else makes for you if you don't, in a province where [more than a million British Columbians don't have a family doctor](https://www.thecanadareport.ca/bc-health-connect-registry-attachment-gap/) to talk them through first. Writing them down yourself is most of the value here. That's where the hour went. Not fighting the interface — answering questions I'd spent six years successfully not answering. The software is the easy part. The service you're actually buying is a structured excuse to sit down and decide. ## The mirror will is the best feature and nobody mentions it If you're doing this as a couple, this is the part that saves you real time. You complete your will, then generate a mirror will for your spouse. It copies everything across and flips the relational language — husband to wife, and so on — and then you edit whatever should differ. It worked exactly as advertised. That's the whole review of that feature. It was easy, it was fast, and it turned a second full pass into a five-minute edit. Worth knowing: LegalWills strongly advises against a *joint* will, which is a different thing — a single document signed by both spouses. Their reasoning is sound and matches what estate lawyers generally say: it becomes unclear whether the surviving spouse can revoke or amend it, and that ambiguity has produced a lot of ugly litigation. Two mirror wills, two separate accounts. Don't shortcut it. ## Two things worth knowing before you sit down Neither of these slowed me down much, but both would have been nice to know in advance. **Read the guardianship question carefully.** It's asking something narrower than the plain English suggests. I'm the legal guardian of someone, answered yes, and found that person listed as a dependant — which wasn't what I meant. Backing up and changing it took thirty seconds. Just read it twice. **Know your second and third choice of executor.** Once you name an executor, the wizard asks for an alternate, and then an alternate to that. This is good practice and I'm glad it pushed me, but it's the kind of question that's much easier to answer if you've thought about it over coffee rather than on the spot. One more thing to set expectations around: the service generates documents, it doesn't give advice. At one point my wife asked whether it's a problem to name a power of attorney who lives in another city. Perfectly reasonable question, and the software doesn't have a view. That's the trade at this price — you're getting the same document-generation software a lawyer would be using, without the lawyer sitting across the desk. Worth knowing so you're not waiting for guidance that isn't coming. ## Making it legal in BC: the part I wish I'd understood sooner Here's the thing that confused me at first, and the explanation is more interesting than the confusion. LegalWills' general FAQ tells you that your will must be printed, signed in the presence of two witnesses, and signed by those witnesses in your presence. That's written to cover all thirteen provinces and territories, so it defaults to the strictest common standard. British Columbia isn't the common standard. As of December 1, 2021, amendments to the *Wills, Estates and Succession Act* made BC the first province in Canada to recognize fully electronic wills. Wills can be created, signed and witnessed digitally, with witnesses attending by video so long as everyone is in each other's "electronic presence" — meaning it happens live, in real time, with everyone able to communicate as if they were in the same room. LegalWills supports this directly through an integrated Video Signing Room. So in BC, you have three routes: print it and sign with two witnesses in the room, print it and have witnesses attend by video signing counterpart copies, or do the whole thing digitally. **But here's the wrinkle that nobody tells you, and it caught me.** BC extended electronic execution to wills only. Enduring powers of attorney and representation agreements still have to be signed in wet ink and exist as physical documents. So if you do what I did and create all three, your will and your power of attorney don't follow the same rules. One can be finished on a video call. The other two need a printer. Whichever route you take, the witness rules are the same and they're worth getting right. Your witnesses must be at least 19\. They cannot be a beneficiary of the will, or the spouse of a beneficiary. Get that wrong and the will itself survives — but the gift to that witness is void unless a court says otherwise. Friends, neighbours and co-workers are fine. You don't need a lawyer or a notary. LegalWills also recommends initialling every page so pages can't be swapped later, and destroying the previous version every time you sign a new one. Both are good habits. At the time of writing I've completed all the documents but haven't done the signing step yet — that's happening shortly. Until then, what I have is a very well-organized set of intentions, not a will. That distinction is the single most important thing in this article. **The document isn't a will until it's signed and witnessed.** No online service can do that part for you. ## What it actually costs The public pricing ladder, in Canadian dollars: | Package | Price | What you get | | ----------------- | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | | MyWill on its own | **$49.95** | The will, one year of updates | | Essentials | **$69.95** | Will, funeral wishes, final messages, keyholders | | Premium | **$99.95** | Everything above plus power of attorney and living will | | Ultimate | **$129.95** | Everything above plus Life Locker and document vault | Every package includes one year of unlimited updates and a Canada Will Registry code they value at $40\. You can see the current [package options on the LegalWills.ca site](https://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=nFpj5SRQZyQ&offerid=1059710.9&type=3&subid=pricing&ref=thecanadareport.ca). **Two things worth knowing that aren't on the pricing page.** First, your spouse gets 40% off. Each person needs their own separate account, but after your purchase you get a reference code that takes 40% off your partner's. That makes Premium for a couple about $160 rather than $200 — which is why I'd point most people there rather than at the Ultimate package I was given. The two extras in Ultimate, Life Locker and the document vault, are useful organizational tools but they don't create legal documents. If you're buying one thing, buy the tier that produces the documents. Second, check your own account for renewal pricing rather than the FAQ. The public FAQ lists membership extensions at $14.95 for a year, $29.95 for five years and $44.95 for ten. My account, which is on the top tier, showed $24.95, $79.95 and $149.95 for one person, plus a lifetime option that isn't listed publicly. Renewal appears to scale with your package, which makes sense given how much more is being stored — just budget from the number on your own renewal screen. **And the question that actually matters: what happens if you let the membership lapse?** Nothing. Your printed, signed will remains valid for the rest of your life whether or not you have an account. The membership buys you the ability to log back in and generate an updated document — that's all. It has no bearing on the legal standing of a document you've already signed. Which brings me to the part that should change how you think about the lifetime option. Every time you update your will, the new version has to be printed and witnessed again, and the old one destroyed. "Unlimited updates" sounds frictionless. It isn't — each update means another signing ceremony with two non-beneficiary witnesses. So the membership saves you the drafting, not the signing. Buy the long term if you genuinely expect to redo the ceremony more than once or twice. Otherwise the first year is probably enough, and you can reactivate later if life changes. For comparison: two mirror wills from a BC lawyer typically run well into four figures. Even at the top of the LegalWills ladder you're an order of magnitude below that. That gap is the entire value proposition, and it's real. ## When to see a lawyer instead LegalWills publishes its own list of situations where they'd rather you didn't use them, and it's more thorough than most competitors': matrimonial disputes or disinheriting a spouse or child, a history of mental illness where capacity might be questioned, property or real estate in multiple countries, part-ownership of businesses where ownership could be challenged, a will made in contemplation of marriage, large estates that would benefit from tax planning, farm ownership, providing long-term medical care for a dependant, pending litigation, or any reason to expect a challenge in court. If you're on that list, the lawyer's fee is money well spent. The whole point of a will is that it holds up, and a company willing to say so up front is one I'd trust with the straightforward cases. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is LegalWills.ca legit? Yes. It's operated by PartingWishes Inc. out of Ottawa and has been running since 2000\. More usefully than the trust badges: it participates in the Law Society of British Columbia's Innovation Sandbox and the Law Society of Ontario's Access to Innovation programme, meaning provincial law societies have looked at the service directly. It's also BBB accredited and partners with Costco, CAA and H&R Block. There's a 30-day money-back guarantee, and they don't store credit card details or auto-renew. ### Is an online will legal in Canada? The document a service generates isn't a will until you execute it properly. Do that correctly and it's exactly as legally valid as one drafted by a lawyer — there's no legal requirement to use a lawyer or a notary to make a valid will in Canada. Get the signing wrong and it may not be a will at all, regardless of who wrote it. ### Can I sign my will by video call in BC? Yes, in BC specifically. Since December 2021 BC has permitted electronic wills and remote witnessing by video, provided everyone is present simultaneously and can communicate in real time. Powers of attorney and representation agreements are excluded and still need wet-ink signatures on paper. Most other provinces are less permissive — check your own rules before assuming. ### How long does it really take? About 20 minutes for a straightforward will if you know your answers. Closer to an hour and a quarter for a full package covering will, power of attorney and living will. The variable isn't the software — it's how long you spend on the questions that require a real decision. ### What happens if I stop paying? Your signed will stays valid indefinitely. You lose online access to edit and regenerate it. If you later want back in, reactivation costs $14.95 for a fresh year, and you don't pay for the dormant period. ### Should my spouse and I make a joint will? No. Make two mirror wills instead. A joint will is a single document signed by both of you, and it creates genuine uncertainty about whether the survivor can ever change it. Mirror wills achieve the same outcome without the ambiguity, and the mirror feature makes the second one quick. ## The bottom line If your estate is ordinary and your obstacle is that you've never started, [LegalWills.ca](https://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=nFpj5SRQZyQ&offerid=1059710.9&type=3&subid=bottom&ref=thecanadareport.ca) is worth the money and then some. I spent six years not writing a will because it felt like a project. It was an evening. If you own a business, a farm, or property in another country, this is a job for a lawyer — and LegalWills will tell you the same thing, which is a large part of why I trust them on everything else. And whichever route you take: the document is not a will until it's signed and witnessed. Book that in before you close the laptop, because the version of you that's been putting this off for six years is very good at finding reasons to do it next weekend. And if this has you looking at the other thing you've been meaning to sort out, the [BC wildfire preparedness guide](https://www.thecanadareport.ca/bc-wildfire-preparedness-guide/) covers the go-bag and evacuation plan most Okanagan and Shuswap households are also putting off until next weekend. --- *The Canada Report earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post, and LegalWills.ca provided a code covering the cost of the package reviewed here. This does not affect the assessment above. Nothing in this article is legal advice — for anything beyond a straightforward estate, speak to a lawyer in your province.* ## Sign up for The Canada Report Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. Your modern digest of Canadian news. Friendly, clear, and in your inbox.