Many people use free online Islamic Will templates for creating their important estate plans. It's not easy for people to realize the issues their executors or trustee may potentially face. People tend to delay in creating their estate plans, and as a last resort when they need to do in an emergency (i.e., planning for Hajj, Travel, or due to medical care), grab the online free Will or Trust template without looking at the other available online Will services, consulting lawyers, or legal firms. People do not realize the consequences of using free online templates and may face unexpected issues during probating and settlement for executors and trustees. We will explore possible problems that may make your estate plan ineffective and turn into nothing. Creating and finalizing estate plans using the free online template is one of a person's biggest mistakes and is unfair to inheritors. The bigger issue is that a person would not realize his error and invalidity of estate plans in a lifetime. His inheritors would face delays, more expense, and desperation, and in the end, they would express wrath instead of a blessing.
THREE (3) REASONS TO USE FREE TEMPLATES
Three reasons are below but bear in mind money in the bank or cash are assets, not just house, land, farms, or business that is physically or digitally existing.
If you do not have any children.
If you do not have any assets. This may not be the case for most people. Cash or money in the bank, bicycles, and belongings are all considered assets.
If you cannot afford it. Wassiyyah and many other online Will providers offer affordable service, so this cannot be the issue. It's not ideal, but In the worst case, you can grab the online free template and create your Will.
FIFTEEN (15) REASONS NOT TO USE FREE TEMPLATES
The main problems of free templates are briefly summarized below.
The free online templates are used as a promoting tool for their websites and SEO (Search engine optimization) that not many people realize. That’s why you would see lots of samples of Islamic Will available at your fingertips. This SEO approach is fine, but people take it with a grain of salt to finalize their estate plan, and that’s the issue.
The free online templates may not meet compliance, sometimes legal or shariah or sometimes both, per our Team's research. For example, most Islamic Will templates refer to the distribution of assets as "distribute as per Islamic inheritance law," This approach is fine if you live and have assets under an Islamic regime but does not work in non-Muslim majority countries because the Islamic law is not known for judiciary and government.
The free online templates have a big disclaimer that people often ignore when creating their estate plans. For example, use this free template for reference only. In another example, this template is for such and such country or jurisdiction. When people get in the first search, they grab and utilize it without thinking.
The free online templates are very generic and do not meet country or jurisdiction (i.e., State, Province, or Territory) specific laws and regulations. Also, the generic templates available for Living Will (or Medical directive) and Power of attorney do not meet shariah compliance. Unfortunately, people use those templates to get only satisfaction it by creating Will or Trust. Grabbing the online template can be serious, and they do not know what to do after creating it. For example, if you have assets in more than one jurisdiction (Countries, States, Provinces, Territories), then you may have to create International Will or Multi-Jurisdictional Will based on your circumstances and for Trusts, it's not easy to fit overseas assets.
If your estate plan is invalidated in court legally for one tiny error, it will be invalid, and your inheritors will suffer delays and costs. The possible errors may be due to missing requirements, miswritten or misrepresented information, not following witnessing requirements, executors needing to be more proper, etc.
If your estate plan is not shariah compliant, it will be invalid (Islamically) even though it is valid legally and the court has approved it. For example, your estate plans need to include sharia-related clauses on distributing assets. As we mentioned, the generic text regarding the following sharia for estate distribution may only work in many non-Muslim majority courts.
Estate planning experts can add value, especially to help you fulfilling specific requirements for signing and witnessing. You get a free Islamic Will template without instructions and advice. Now you can imagine without knowing the requirements, you would follow shortcuts, and your estate plans would be invalid. If you did not follow signing or witnessing requirements would be unknown to most parts of the world except our Merciful Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta'ala) would know. Wassiyyah observed many such cases in the past as people using shortcuts.
If you live and have assets existing in one or more of the three countries (i.e., Canada, United States, or Australia) and/or jurisdiction (i.e., State, Province, or Territory), most online Islamic Will templates would not work because they are designed for only country or jurisdiction. The reason is the laws of estate planning differ from one jurisdiction to another in these countries. We have real life example about people taking short cuts—Sometimes in the past, one of the community member called us and said I found very good templates online, and this is the link and he said,"I found it very informative, and he said, should I use this template?." After we looked at the template, we found a bunch of legal requirement were missing, unfortunately.
If you took the free template online and made changes as you wish, you will surely miss many things, including filling in information requirements. Wassiyyah's team witnessed a case; the individuals, who created Wills from the online template, and he removed a bunch of items, including charity tables (because he did not think it was necessary), Mawarith's schedule (because it was too long), and many legal clauses based on his perception. Imagine how much risk he is taking. Wassiyyah faced real life example during Hajj journey when Wassiyyah's team was on my pilgrimage to Mecca in 2016, we had the opportunity to discuss Islamic Will with one of my hotel mates in Mecca. When did we ask him how did you create his Will? -He said, "I got the templates from online and removed a bunch of stuff that was not necessary from the online templates to finalize my last Will." When we asked further, we discovered that he wasn't aware of what are the legal requirements of a Will. Unfortunately, our community does not realize the importance of an estate plan and instead considers it one checkmark.
The Free online templates sometimes include more than one estate plan (Islamic Will, Trust, and/or living Will), which is inappropriate. Islamic Will is created to look after assets once a person dies. Living Will is created to look after his medical-related preferences and wishes when a person is alive but becomes mentally incapable. This is one of many issues with free templates. When a person becomes mentally incapable, the estate plans will be reviewed and invalidated because it is mixed up between assets and medical preferences. Also, Online Will templates are either too long or too small. Too long templates lose flavor when it goes to probate, where the court would not want to read useless information instead of looking for clear and crisp text. Overwhelming information sometimes creates confusion and often delays the probating process. On the other hand, the too-small templates may leave aside important information you may not know. What we are looking for here is to have the Islamic Will or Trust that has reasonable information to ensure meeting Legal and Shariah compliance.
Free Online templates do not provide proper default protections in case something goes wrong, for example, if no heirs survive or everyone dies in an accident and is left with huge assets, simultaneous death, and so on.
Free online templates do not cover some aspects, such as tax efficiency. It becomes so expensive after passing through probate. Any transfer of assets might be subject to substantial tax impact, especially if the deceased is left with significant investments outside of tax-free allowances.
Free online templates do not cover issues of joint assets, which may require other adds to an estate plan or more advanced estate plans (i.e., Trust).
Choosing witnessing and executors are crucial. You can not mix or exchange their roles. There are specific laws regarding the eligibility for choosing them. You create from a Free online template, then speak to someone or Google it and follow, which is 99.99% risky. So, online free templates are just templates without providing information, so you cannot obtain advice through customer support or written articles or blogs that help you get more insight to complete your estate plan.
Free online templates are "as is" and may not comply with current laws or laws of your country. You created your estate plans and would only realize once in a lifetime that it was not proper or valid. The only people who would know are your executors and inheritors once they face issues during probate processing.
More reasons, you can find in the video below.
Wassiyyah ensures that all the above issues are handled through authentications, processes, and instructions. You keep worrying aside about compliance when you join Wassiyyah.
