Probate Information: Exit

We want to make it easy for everyone to have access to the right tools and services to prepare their affairs in case of an emergency. SharedAffairs users told us they need an easy way for their loved ones to complete the probate process. Too many people have been through expensive and confusing probate processes with insufficient guidance. That has invariably increased their legal costs, taken much longer than necessary and caused stress and anxiety at the time they need to be dealing with the emotional upheaval of having lost a loved one.

SharedAffairs allows you to help your loved ones to avoid this unnecessary anxiety in case anything happens to you. We give you an easy to use, flexible structured digital vault to safely and reliably store your private information with bank and government level security. You can assign it to your trusted contacts and ensure they can only access it when you want them to, either now or only in an emergency, for example, after you are gone.

You don’t need to leave them to guess where you keep your financial information, what life insurance you pay for, the assets you own, what accounts you use, who to contact or which solicitor or accountant to approach.

Use our smart, easy form to store your probate information.

You can leave clear instructions and build up your information as time goes on, when convenient to you, using your phone, tablet or computer.

Once you’re logged in, you will see your Probate Information digital vault. This lets you store your private notes and documents. You can also simply answer the questions in the smart form that allow you to store the relevant information following the guides provided by our experts.

You can take your time deciding how to answer any question when convenient, you don’t have to complete it all in one go. We simply save it for you until the next time you log in and you can continue where you left off. You can make changes to any previous answers as often as you wish.

We provide expert step-by-step guidance and create a secure digital vault so you can relax knowing the information will be available in a safe place that nobody can access except in an emergency by those trusted contacts that you assign.

How do you make sure that the information in your Probate Information reaches the right people only if you are no longer around?

That’s easy, we have taken care of this for you. This is how it works:

• You answer the questions in the smart form to store the right information. You can also insert supporting documents as you wish.
• You can assign anyone from your contacts: such as family, friends or other trusted people to this informaiton. At this point they cannot see the information you have provided, they will only be able to access the information in an emergency as described below.
• If anything happens to you, your assigned trusted contacts will sign into their own SharedAffairs account and request access to your Will Repository. This will automatically trigger the countdown to open the Probate Information vault and they will wait.
• When they request access to your Probate Information vault, you will immediately be alerted (by e-mail or SMS and through your SharedAffairs account) to inform you who has requested access. The other trusted people that you have assigned, will also be alerted so that they can let you know if anyone requests access when they shouldn’t. This ensures that you can never miss an alert as long as someone can contact you.
• If there is no emergency and you are well, you can cancel the request to stop the Probate Information vault from being accessed.
• If there is a genuine emergency and you are not around, you will not cancel the request thus the Probate Information vault will eventually open (according to the time delay you decided) for your trusted contacts to access the information you placed in it.
• They can then print the information and share it with the right people, solicitors or accountants as per your instructions.

Remember, whether you have completed the questions in the smart form or not, if you feel ready to share the information you’ve provided, you can assign your trusted people whenever you want. This ensures they will at least know what you need them to know.

SharedAffairs also make legal experts available to review your information should you wish to do so. By allowing you to provide structured information ready for review, we can send that information to a professional of your choice (usually one of our solicitors) if you want to select that option. You can review the costs of doing so beforehand. These costs should be reduced as the solicitor should not need to spend valuable time gathering basic information that has already been provided by you by completing the form.

This way, you can rest assured that any complex arrangements, for example, due to divorce, business holdings or extra property assets, are properly recorded.

Aside from your Probate Information, SharedAffairs also helps you record your funeral wishes for your loved ones and lets record a personal video message for them in case anything happens to you.

SharedAffairs also makes it easy to create your will, store it and make it available to your key contacts only at the right time. If you have not written your will because you are unsure of where to start, think it takes too much effort, are confused by costs tried DIY wills but want to store your will safely for free, are too busy to visit solicitors or any other reason, then try this free service and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

We also give you digital vaults that are designed to encrypt and securely store anything such as access to your social media, email, goodbye letters or cherished photos and passwords for critical online accounts or for your phone and computer. You can store anything at your own pace in the privacy of your own home on your laptop, tablet or mobile as and when you identify key information.

You can organise yourself and let your family know you have done your bit by giving them all the legal, emotional and useful information they’ll need in case something happens to you.