5 Common Misconceptions About the Canada Will Registry
I'm a Business Development Representative at NoticeConnect and every day I speak with lawyers about our Canada Will Registry. To help you evaluate if this is right for your firm, I've identified five common misconceptions about the registry from previously skeptical clients who have since joined our system.
1. "I don’t have enough wills for this to be worthwhile"
Some lawyers think that they need to have a large will vault to get started on our will registry. Whether you have a few thousand wills or a few dozen, NoticeConnect is happy to help get you set up at no cost to your firm.
When you join our system, you gain access to free tools that help you keep your will vault organized. Getting started early is a great way to keep organized as your will vault grows.
2. "What about privacy and client confidentiality?"
At NoticeConnect we work with our clients to make sure that our solutions meet your needs and are consistent with lawyers' strict requirements regarding privacy law and client confidentiality.
Your firm can use the Canada Will Registry right away. That's how we've built a database of a quarter of a million wills in a little over a year.
Your data is private and secure, which means you don't need to get additional client consent forms to register your clients' wills (our will registry keeps your information confidential, and you can read how we do so here). Take a look at these testimonials from other firms who have joined our system.
3. "I love the idea, but I don't have enough time to onboard our records"
We know just how busy it is running a wills and estates practice, especially with COVID-19 this year. Lawyers and their teams have enough on their plates as it is.
This is why we made it easy for firms to get onboarded. We can format your will index and register all of your records. And if you need help putting together a will index from your paper records, we can help there too.
Why do we do this? Our goal is to make the Canada Will Registry comprehensive, which means we are happy to do the legwork and make it easy for firms to join.
4. "My clients take their wills home, so I don't need to register them"
Whether you hold onto the physical wills or give them to your clients to store, registering these documents with the Canada Will Registry is still valuable.
Registering a will gives you a chance to ask your client where they plan to keep this will, e.g. at home in a cabinet, in a bank safety deposit box, or even in a freezer. If someone searches for this will down the road, you'll be notified and can help the family track it down. This is a great way to get probate files without having to physically store the documents.
5. "We already have a system for our wills"
We are always thrilled when we hear that a firm has a system for keeping its will vault organized. It's best practice, and it makes it even easier to take advantage of our will registry.
If you have a system for keeping your wills organized, it's easy to register those wills with us all at once. When you do this, you'll receive an alert if someone is ever searching for one of the wills in your firm's possession.
These alerts help keep you on top of requests for missing wills that match your records and help firms generate probate work.
Get in Touch
Do you have any questions about the Canada Will Registry that I haven't addressed in this blog post? If so, please feel free to email us directly at [email protected]. We’d be more than happy to answer any further questions or set up a quick demo.
