Why Safe Custody Of Your Will Is Crucial
Dec 10th, 2007 by Editor
Having written you Will, the next step is keeping your Will safe. Many people keep their Will so well hidden, others could not find it. Besides being lost, there are also cases of deliberate destruction as well as tampering by interested parties. Having a Will kept properly would also accidental destruction in the event of fire or flood.
Here are some actual cases where relatives tried to locate a Will.
Why do some parties deliberately destroy a Will? Mainly because it changes the distribution amount. Let’s say the testator leaves 2 surviving children. He wrote in his Will give 5% portion of his estate to his son and 95% to his daughter. Assuming the son is unhappy with the distribution, gets hold of the Will and destroys it, his share will now be 50%!
Some law firms do keep your Will after you have written it but usually they don’t and prefer that the client keep their own Will. Because there are so many law firm in Malaysia, when family members can’t locate a Will, they resort to advertising as a last resort.
VitalWills can arrange to have your Will safely kept from being misplaced, lost, tampered with or from accidental destruction. With this service, you will get several Custody ID cards, which are held by you, the testator, your executor and any person of your choice. As the testator, you can retrieve your Will at anytime with this Custody ID card. If anyone else wish to retrieve your Will, they will need to produce this ID card and your death certificate, plus the role of executor is verified, before the Will is released to them.
With this service, your Will is kept in a strong room with fire resistant walls and doors, biometrics security, smoke and motion detectors. The fees are very reasonable. Only RM 80 per year or if you prefer, a lifetime fee of RM 800. It is also come with an exclusive discounts for rewriting Will should you have any changes or amendments you wish to make in the future.
My father died several years with a will done through a lawyer. When he passed away, the will was submitted to the court but it needed the witness confirmation. The will was witness by the clerks in the law firm, but by that time, the clerks have resigned. Since the lawyer handling the estate admin was not an expert, the case was passed to another lawyer plus the fact we could not locate the witness, it took us around 5 years to clear this.
Hi, i just want to share my experience. My grandfather has some land in our home town. He wrote a will through a lawyer and kept the will with the lawyer. Since it was a small town, my granfather thot when he pass away, locating the will should be simple. Unfortunately for my father and uncles, we did not know the lawyer died earlier and his law firm closed. At the time, my grandfather was very old already.
We did not know if someone took over the file but we couldnt get the will and it was consider that he had no will
Safe custody is crucial. When my father passed away several years ago, we could not find his will. Although we looked high and low, eventually, we had to go through the distribution process as if he had no will. We are sure he left a will because he mentioned it to our mother so we went through a lot of hassle to have his property distributed.