Provided you have followed the inheritance laws in your local jurisdiction - typically requiring you to nominate an Executor and to have two adult Witnesses (who are not beneficiaries) - your eWill is a legally valid Last Will and Testament. (But please double-check with your local lawyer to ensure you comply with the specific requirements of your jurisdiction.) This eWill is then also a suitable instrument for you to manage the distribution of your physical assets, such as real estate, which are of course subject to local law.
eWill is, however, designed specifically for you to pass on your digital assets. As they are held off-shore, the transfer of these assets does not need to go through the cumbersome, lengthy and expensive process of probate and conventional inheritance. Via eWill, your time-critical assets - or access to them - will be transferred to your designated beneficiaries immediately we receive verified confirmation of your death.
Sure, if you have complex asset ownership or if you simply wish to have a lawyer give you counsel. Use your local lawyer, or we can recommend national law firms that will advise you on the eWills that you generate through our system. However, for the transfer of your digital assets, there is no formal requirement for you to engage any outside consultants. eWill was designed so that you control the process of the future distribution of your assets without requiring expensive – and often unnecessary – third party intervention.
No. eWill is suitable for everyone everywhere, as our system is not tied to a local jurisdiction. The platform operates in the cloud, so that's where the inheritance process happens. eWill is designed for the online transfer of your digital assets – or access to them - to your beneficiaries. So it works in the cloud for people in every jurisdiction. It enables you to leave after-death instructions for the speedy transfer of your digital assets, which are most likely held off-shore by an amorphous multinational corporation in a nebulous jurisdiction where your local lawyer has no standing and no expertise.
Your digital assets are ex-jurisdiction, up in the cloud. So is the eWill inheritance process.
On the other hand, it is the traditional physical will that risks being ineffective in dealing with assets that are not held in the local jurisdiction.In fact, eWill will also work for transferring your physical assets as long as you observe the legal requirements in your local jurisdiction (this mean that you signing your eWill needs to be properly witnessed). If you have any additional concerns, please consult with your local lawyer or email us at contact@ewill.org
If they are digital assets, it is not really relevant in which jurisdiction they are registered. The eWill system is for the effective transfer of your digital assets, regardless of any physical jurisdiction. For the transfer of your physical assets, your eWill has to conform with local law. Our video witnessing procedure (Step 7. Verification) will satisfy the legal requirement in most jurisdictions. For further advice, please use your local lawyer, or we can recommend national law firms that will advise you on the eWills that you generate through our system. Please email us at contact@ewill.org
There is no fee for opening your eWill account, for building your portfolio, or for the asset-beneficiary transfers after your death. You are also allowed, for free, to open as many individual eWills as you like within your account. There is no additional charge for creating an additional eWill, so normally account-holders maintain multiple eWills in their portfolio, typically one for each major asset or beneficiary, or one for each specific asset-beneficiary. Nor is there any charge for adding, editing or updating your Beneficiaries or List of Assets.
We charge fees only if you opt for enhanced services and additional storage options.
For the transfer of your digital assets, there is no need for video-witnessing. We will execute your instructions immediately we receive verified confirmation of your death. However, you may choose to upload video confirmation for your own peace of mind, or to have the video passed on to your beneficiaries after your death.
For your physical assets, it may be important to have video testimony from your witnesses to confirm your inheritance plans if you think they will be considered contentious. If there is a dispute over the transfer of your physical assets (especially if the Testator – the person making the eWill - is above the age of 65), this video-witnessing will prove your case in probate court.
24/7. Please email us at contact@ewill.org and we will respond immediately. If you need help urgently, please include your phone number, and we will call you right back.
Yes, because digital assets, almost without exception, have single ownership (via a unique combination of User ID/email address). However for those assets where you share usage, you should each make Mirror eWills whereby access to/ownership of the named assets is passed to the surviving partner. The duplicate Mirror eWills should be registered under the name of each partner, and neither of these two eWills should be altered without an identical change in the other.
This Mirror eWill is ideally suited to civil partners, cohabiting or married couples.
No, that is not necessary, as you can download a copy of it at any time by signing in to your account. Also, the beneficiaries of each of your eWills will automatically receive an email with that specific eWill, once we receive verified confirmation of your death. However, we've made it easy for you on completion of each eWill to download a copy and a Certificate of Authenticity.
So of course you can store each eWill for your peace of mind or to share with your beneficiaries. Also if you are using eWill to distribute your physical assets, such as real estate, you may wish to leave a copy with your local lawyer for the purposes of establishing probate in your jurisdiction. But for the transfer of your digital assets, we act on the instructions that you entered in your eWill account, not on a piece of paper.
Updating your eWill is easy: you simply log back in, and edit/update your assets and/or beneficiaries. There is no charge for editing, updating or adding a new eWill. For new assets or beneficiaries, it is simpler and cleaner to create a new eWill (you can create multiple eWills in your portfolio, all under the same account). Fees are charged for eWills only when you opt for enhanced services or additional storage.
If you are making changes to an eWill covering physical assets, such as real estate, you will need to have the changed eWill re-witnessed and the new video confirmation uploaded. If you upload the video-confirmation with your own witnesses, there is no charge. If you request eWill to provide remote video-witnessing, there will be an additional fee of USD 100 (2 witnesses x USD 50 each).
We developed the eWill platform because we believe that in the Internet Age having access to a digital inheritance system is not just a market need – it’s a human right. So, unless you opt for enhanced services or additional storage, we provide the asset-beneficiary delivery system including multiple eWills to users for free. Users pay only when they opt for additional services - like enhanced verification, witnessing, notarisation, or extra storage (for large files like HD videos, for example).
For your purely digital assets, you need neither an executor nor witnesses, as they are generally held in some remote off-shore jurisdiction, far beyond the reach of your local legal system. Effectively, the eWill platform replaces both executor and witnesses, thereby eliminating the cost, the wasted time, and the voluminous paperwork involved.
However, if you are using eWill to distribute your physical assets, such as real estate, you may wish to appoint an executor, and have the eWill live-witnessed and the video attestation uploaded to your account. The executor is usually a trusted friend or local lawyer, but not a beneficiary. The witnesses can be friends or neighbours, for example, but cannot be named beneficiaries of your estate.
There is no lower or upper age limit to make an eWill. If they’re digital assets, they’re your digital assets, and you can use eWill to distribute access to them after your death exactly as you wish. If you are also using eWill to distribute physical assets, such as real estate, to your beneficiaries, then your eWill needs to be legal within the jurisdiction in which the assets are located. In most jurisdictions, this would mean you must be over the age of 18; you must have 2 witnesses; and you probably should appoint an Executor. For your digital assets, these local requirements are not necessary.
Yes. You can name reserve beneficiaries in Step 2 "Add Beneficary" and identify those who would inherit if all the previously named residual beneficiaries do not survive you.
You can add, edit or update your list of beneficiaries at any time with no additional cost. You can also make similar updates and edits to your list of assets. Users pay fees only when they opt for enhanced services or additional storage.
Most digital assets have single ownership, as identified by the unique combination of user name and email address, so this issue is not likely to arise. In cases where you plus one or more people have access to a digital asset, we will transfer your access rights to the asset in accordance with your instructions.
However, if you are using eWill to pass on physical assets, you should describe the shared ownership of each asset and set your instructions for how it is to be distributed. For transfer of physical assets, such as real estate, your eWill needs to be legal within the jurisdiction in which the assets are located. In most jurisdictions, this would mean you must be over the age of 18; you must have 2 witnesses; and you probably should appoint an Executor. For your digital assets, these local requirements are not necessary.
Yes.
eWill is diametrically opposite to the traditional physical will which, once it’s filed for probate, becomes an item of public court record. In contrast, your eWill remains private forever, with each of your beneficiaries receiving only the data that you have left specifically for them. (Unless you have specifically instructed us to make part or all of your eWills accessible to a wider audience, like, for example, a charitable donation.)
Legally, your eWill is private. eWill’s Privacy Policy is fully in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the European Union’s GDPR regulations, which protect the privacy and security of each citizen’s personal data.
Contractually, of course, we cannot disclose the contents of your eWills or any information about your digital assets to anyone other than your designated beneficiaries.
Technically, we have made sure we are not in a position to do so. We do not ask for passwords, so we have no knowledge of the files you store offline. The triple-factor security on your encrypted and downloaded files means that neither we nor any third-party organisation can access the content of your eWills. As we do not have access to this content, we don't know about the underlying assets, so we cannot disclose anything about them.
Finally, when you download an eWill off the the system, this guarantees you complete privacy forever about your eWill, the underlying assets within, and the designated beneficiaries. We keep no record of the contents of deleted eWills other than the file name and number which are needed for decryption by your beneficiaries after we have verified confirmation of your death.
Thus, your legacy digital assets remain absolutely secure, and completely private, forever. Likewise, the distribution of individual assets to the designated beneficiary remains private, known only to that individual. Under this ultra-secure system, eWill does not have access to your assets. We do not even know what assets are in your legacy portfolio. Furthermore, if you have chosen to mask the IDs of your beneficiaries, we will not even know who they are. All we have is the addresses supplied by you to enable us to deliver the access codes/asset files in accordance with your instructions.
These ultimate security precautions have another benefit for eWill users. What we don’t know we can’t tell. Thus, even if subject to a legitimate court order from the relevant authorities, we can’t reveal what is or was in your assets. Nor, if you have masked your list of beneficiaries, to whom you left those assets.
Your encrypted eWills are impenetrable. Your digital assets are absolutely secure. Your legacy is assured. Your data is private, permanently.
"What goes on the Internet, stays on the Internet."
Answer 1: Yes, if you have chosen to store them unencrypted in your eWill digital vault. Typically, users don't bother to encrypt eWills that they intend to eventually make public - like photo albums, video collections or social media accounts. These are probably eWills which you also want to update frequently, so for your convenience they are better left unencrypted. (Once an eWill is encrypted, you can't edit it. However, to create a new one is easy and takes just a few minutes.)
Answer 2: No. If you have chosen to use eWill to distribute access instructions rather than passwords then we have no way of connecting the two. Your beneficiaries will know where you have stored the digital asset files - typically in your PC, or in thumb drives in secure physical storage. Our job is simply to deliver to them the instructions to retrieve the passwords to open the files.
Answer 3: No. Assuming you have chosen the encryption-download-and-delete option – which you should have done for sensitive, high-value assets – we do not hold or have access to your digital assets. You have protected your eWill with impenetrable triple-factor security. In order to view the contents, the 3 factors required are 1) the encrypted file; 2) the associated password; and 3) decrypting the file on the eWill platform. Without all 3 factors, no person or third-party organisation – including eWill - can access your assets.
If you opt for triple-factor security, you can store the encrypted file yourself, or give it and the password to the designated beneficiary. Leaving the file and password with your beneficiary is the second step in the digital inheritance process (the first step being the creation of your eWill portfolio). But the third step - release of the eWill – does not happen until after your death. The system does not allow the beneficiary to decrypt the file on the eWill platform until we have been able to verify your death.
Read More Encryption
If you use eWill simply to store instructions for your beneficiaries to access your digital assets, then of course eWill does not have access to them.
If you have chosen the encryption option and downloaded your eWills off the system – which you should do for any sensitive or high-value assets - No, we do not have access.
If you have left some social photographs unencrypted, then Yes, we do.
For social data and files you intend to make public, it's probably more convenient for you to store these eWills unencrypted on our blockchain-secured system. You can edit them at any time. And, yes, we can read them. However, they are not of interest or relevance to our business.
But when you encrypt eWills containing high-value and ultra-sensitive data, then download and delete them off the system, No, we do not have access. Once downloaded, they have impenetrable triple-factor security. No person or third party organisation - including eWill - can access them. Ever.
The triple factors are: i) advanced encryption (technically speaking, it's a randomly-generated one-off occurrence which can't be replicated - not even by us); ii) your chosen password which is held by you or your beneficiary, and not by us; iii) decryption when your beneficiary uploads the encrypted file on the eWill platform, which the system will allow only when we have verified confirmation of your death.
The ultimate security option, for ultra-sensitive, high-value assets, is to download your encrypted eWill (one or many, at no cost), and delete it from the system. Once deleted, no record of the eWill other than the file name and number remains with us (they are needed for when the file is uploaded for decryption). Then you either keep the encrypted file in your own private, secure storage or pass it to your designated beneficiary.
This gives your ewill “triple-factor security”. In order to view the contents, the 3 factors required are 1) the encrypted file; 2) the associated password; and 3) decrypting the file on the eWill platform, which the system will not allow until we have verified confirmation of your death. Without all 3 factors, no person or third-party organisation – including eWill - can access your assets. Ever.
If you opt to leave the file and password with your beneficiary, you're making the second step in the digital inheritance process (the first step being the creation of your eWill portfolio). But the third step -release of the eWill – does not happen until after your death. The system does not allow the beneficiary to decrypt the file on the eWill platform until we have been able to verify your death. But please remember: once you have downloaded-and-deleted an encrypted file, we have no means of recovering it. It is important therefore that you or the beneficiary never lose this downloaded eWill and the associated password. (However, if you should happen to lose it, you can create a new eWill to replace the one that’s been lost in a matter of minutes, at no cost.)
You may of course choose not to encrypt non-sensitive eWills, like travel blogs, family videos or photo albums. The advantage of this is convenience and simplicity: you can return to an unencrypted eWill at any time and edit and update it. And even for your unencrypted eWills, the digital vault is blockchain-protected, the servers have multiple back-ups on different continents, and the security level is above that of international banks. But when you're looking for absolute peace of mind for your high-value, sensitive assets, then you should take advantage of eWill's advanced encryption functionality to give them triple-factor security.
The eWill platform was designed to deliver on four promises to its users:
Your eWill portfolio is impenetrable. Your digital assets are absolutely secure. Your legacy is assured. Your data is private, permanently.
No. Not for your digital assets.
One of the side-benefits of eWill is that it removes the need for you to have an executor, as, in effect, the eWill system handles that function online. If you still choose to have one, you can use eWill to send additional instructions to the executor. But eWill takes the burden away from the executor and ensures that access to your digital assets is transferred to your beneficiaries quickly, securely, and seamlessly. This rapid, safe distribution of your assets is just not possible under the conventional system of a physical will and the typical 4 months of the probate process.
eWill gets the job done safely, effectively and affordably and saves a lot of hassle for your loved ones in going through the painful conventional will-and-inheritance process.
Yes.
eWill provides ultimate security for your digital assets by our advanced technology and rigorous procedures. The eWill system enables you to encrypt your eWills, then download and delete them off the system to keep in secure storage with you or your beneficiaries. After you have downloaded/deleted an encrypted eWill, no record of the content remains on the platform. This gives you impenetrable 3-factor security. No person or third party organisation - including us - can access the content of your eWills other than your beneficiaries, and not until they have (1) the encrypted files and (2) the associated passwords; and then only when (3) your encrypted files have been decrypted on the eWill platform after we have verified confirmation of your death.
We use an advanced encryption/decryption system on a blockchain-secured platform, and the platform runs on servers that have multiple-back-ups on different continents. Our encryption/decryption standard is above the level used by the international banks; the file encryption is randomly generated in a one-off occurrence. We can’t recreate this occurrence, so we can’t replicate the file encryption – and neither can anyone else. For this reason, please ensure that your eWill downloads – files and/or passwords - are stored securely, with you and/or your beneficiaries.
Your eWills are protected to the highest level. Your digital assets are absolutely secure.
No. Your local lawyer is best placed to advise you on planning the inheritance of your local physical assets. Each jurisdiction has its own inheritance laws, and your local lawyer will be able to guide you in writing a physical will which will be effective in transferring these physical assets - typically bricks and mortar - to your designated beneficiaries.
eWill is designed specifically to handle the inheritance transfer of your digital assets, which may be held off-shore, on the internet, by an amorphous multinational corporation in a nebulous jurisdiction where your local inheritance laws eWill enables the efficient transfer of access to these time-sensitive digital assets to your designated have no standing.
No. eWill is designed to run in parallel with your physical will. It has been developed to complement the traditional will-and-probate process, not to replace it.
Your physical will works well for your local physical assets – typically, bricks and mortar – and, with the guidance of your local lawyer, is an effective means of ensuring the orderly transfer of these local physical assets to your beneficiaries. But eWill is designed specifically for digital assets, which are most likely held off-shore, by a giant multinational corporation in a remote jurisdiction where your lawyer has no standing and no expertise.
By their very nature, your digital assets – bank accounts, trading platforms, email accounts digital wallets, social media, etc. – are a critical part of your business life, and a vital part of your family life. There is a risk that your beneficiaries will be disconnected from them, even for a matter of days. eWill provides the transfer mechanism that enables you to ensure that these time-sensitive digital assets (or access to them) are distributed to your designated beneficiaries smoothly, securely and swiftly.
You have probably put a lot of effort into building an effective physical will, although in the 4 months of the typical probate process, it is unlikely that anyone is going to run off with your 5-bedroomed house. But without a fast, secure system for digital asset inheritance, the critical assets may not reach your loved ones in time. Or, worst case, they may never reach them at all.
No. Because your digital assets don’t have to go through probate. In fact, in most cases, they should not go through probate.
Probate is the more-than-500-year old procedure for legally approving the transfer of your estate to your beneficiaries (or, in the absence of a will, to your heirs). It works fine for physical assets, especially bricks and mortar. It is unlikely, during the probate process, that someone will steal your house, or remove your family heirlooms, so you can be confident your property will eventually end up with your beneficiaries. The process is slow and bureaucratic – necessarily so, because it is handled by a court of law – and often expensive, because there are so many middle-men with their hands in the pot (your pot or, by then, your children’s pot). But, for physical property, it works.
Probate does not work so well, if at all, for digital assets. First, these assets are virtual, intangible, and are probably held off-shore by some giant multinational data corporation in some remote jurisdiction. Second, your local probate court will likely have no authority in that jurisdiction; and the multinational corporation would most likely ignore the court if it did. Third, again it is unlikely that anyone will steal your assets, because the global technology giants usually have reasonable data security systems. But the real danger is that if you do not arrange to transfer them properly, they will end up lost in cyberspace, and inaccessible to your beneficiaries (who are blocked from accessing them by the self-same security systems); or if they are subject to annual renewal they will end up in the clutches of ….. the global technology giant. Fourth, if any of your digital accounts are necessary for the well-being of your family or the smooth running of your business, you will want your beneficiaries to get immediate access to them once your death is confirmed. A 4-month delay in transferring them because of the lengthy probate procedure is clearly a non-starter.
Therefore, to safeguard your digital assets and their proper transfer you should not risk the conventional probate route – and you don’t need to. Instead take the parallel track of a digital process designed specifically for digital assets. eWill provides the transfer system that enables you to ensure that access to these time-sensitive digital assets is distributed to your designated beneficiaries smoothly, securely and swiftly.
Yes. When the eWills are downloaded by you at the encryption stage, or after we have executed your instructions and released your decrypted eWills to your beneficiaries at the transfer/inheritance stage, you have the download-and-delete option. If you choose this option, there is no longer any record of your eWills or descriptions of the underlying assets held on the eWill system. This guarantees complete privacy forever about the distribution of your assets and the beneficiaries who received them.
You also have the option of leaving a final instruction to delete all records of your account from the platform after we have distributed your eWills, subject to us having received verified confirmation of your death. There will then be no trace of your eWills on the system, nor even that you were ever an eWill account holder. Read More on "Permanent Privacy".
Encrypted/downloaded eWills are protected by unbeatable triple-factor security. If you do not have all three factors, your eWills cannot be accessed. It’s not the end of the world. As the account-holder, you just have to go back to your eWill account and re-create the files.
In every one of the three lost/misplaced scenarios above, your account and your digital assets are still inaccessible by third parties, protected by the triple-factor security. Then, safe in the knowledge that no one else has been able to access your lost eWill, you simply start again and create a replacement. The platform enables you to create a replacement eWill from scratch in a matter of minutes, and at zero cost. Updates, edits, new eWills are free: you pay only if you opt for enhanced services or additional storage.
A Verifier is one of up to 3 people you trust absolutely who you have appointed to confirm your death.
In the eWill system, there are two levels you can choose for the standard of Verification needed to confirm your death, before we can release your eWills: basic and enhanced.
The basic level, part of eWill’s free service package, is an automated checking mechanism via your email, and then if you don’t respond within 48 hours, we start to double-check every day via all your other instant messaging channels (WhatsApp, WeChat, Line, etc.) for up to 30 days (according to your instructions).
eWill has a strict Enhanced Verification standard for confirmation of your death which must be met before we release your eWill portfolio to the beneficiaries. Verification at the enhanced level enables you to appoint trusted Verifiers to add an extra layer of confirmation before we release the eWills to your designated Beneficiaries. When you write your eWill, you should designate one or more “Verifiers”, together with their email address and alternative contact channels (mobile phone, instant-messaging, etc.). The people you choose to verify the confirmation of your death should, obviously, be people you know well and trust implicitly. They should also be people with whom you are in frequent contact, so they will know promptly if you have passed away.
Conventionally, most lawyers will advise that those you designate as Verifiers should not have a vested interest in your estate, i.e., they should not also be beneficiaries. In reality, we recognise that the first people to become aware of your death are also likely to be your beneficiaries. Whatever your choice, the eWill system recognises and implements your instructions automatically. When you initially select a Verifier, we send them an explanatory email advising them of how they should contact us in the event that they need to notify us of your death.
However, an email sent by them is not accepted as confirmation of death; it just triggers the start of the strict Verification procedure.
The Enhanced Verification option enabling you to appoint Verifiers costs a one-time fee of USD 100 (obviously for your entire portfolio of eWills). You can edit and update your Verifiers and their contacts at any time at no additional cost. For the standard verification process, as for all the other parts of the basic eWill package, there is no fee.
In the past, the start of the 4-month will-and probate-and-inheritance process was triggered by the presentation of a traditional physical death certificate, generally attested by two doctors. In future, as our legacy assets shift increasingly from being physical to digital, and with rapid online transfer becoming more critical, the traditional process will simply not be an effective mechanism for digital inheritance. eWill's Verification process is a more efficient way to get the inheritance process underway, and the enhanced verification option speeds it up while adding an extra layer of confirmation.
The eWill system is designed to ensure that your digital assets get transferred to your designated beneficiaries smoothly, swiftly and securely - but at a remarkably affordable "digital" price.
For registration/account opening, yes, eWill is free. For adding beneficiaries and assets, yes, eWill is free. For building a portfolio of eWills so you can allocate each asset to a specific beneficiary, yes, it's free. For editing, updating, or adding to your eWill, yes, it's free. For encrypting/downloading/uploading/decrypting your completed eWills, yes, it's free.
We developed the eWill platform because we believe that in the Internet Age having access to a digital inheritance system is not just a market need – it’s a human right. So, unless you opt for enhanced services or additional storage, we provide the asset-beneficiary delivery system - including multiple eWills - to users for free.
Users pay only when they opt for additional services - like enhanced verification, witnessing, notarisation, or extra storage (for large files like HD videos, for example).