Printing and Signing your Free Will

Please read the information below on printing and signing your free will and testament.

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Once you have created your wills4free Will, you may want to print it. The Will is not legally binding until it is printed and signed. You can print your Will just as you would print any web page.

If your Will is relatively short, you may be able to print the entire Will on one sheet of paper. This is ideal, because the signatures at the bottom of the Will are on the same page as the rest of the Will content. If your Will is a bit longer than one letter-size sheet of paper, using legal-size paper instead will allow you to print it all on one sheet.

If you end up with your Will printed on multiple sheets of paper, you should take care to ensure that the sheets are not separated. An unscrupulous person could possibly take such a Will and substitute their own version of the first page for the first page that you wrote. To prevent that from happening, if your Will is printed on more than one sheet of paper you should:

• Number each page at the bottom (for example: 1 of 4, 2 of 4, 3 of 4, assuming four pages)
• Staple the pages together.
• On the last page there will be a fill-in-the-blank that looks like this: “Page ___of___”. Fill it in. In this example “Page 4 of 4 “.

If you don’t like the way the Will looks when printed and want to change the layout, page breaks or content of your Will yourself, you will need to save the Will to your own computer and edit it. You can save the web page and then edit it in a web editor, if you have such a program, or you can copy all of the text (and the image, if you wish) on the web page and paste it into a new document using your word-processing program. Be very careful when editing the content of your Will. By changing some of the legal language in the Will you may invalidate it, so we strongly recommend only making changes to the way the Will looks.

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Signing

If you are signing your Will without the benefit of a lawyer, please strictly follow these helpful hints:

1. After creating your Will, read it carefully. Does it do what you want it to do?
2. If there is anything you are not happy with, you should re-do the Will, filling in the online form again, and print it again. Do not white out or cross out errors or add written changes on your printed Will. Do it again.
3. If your page is printed on more than one sheet of paper, please see the printing instructions above for numbering your pages.
4. Choose two or three people (depending where you live) who will watch you sign the Will (these are your witnesses). Do not choose anyone (or the spouse of anyone) who could possibly inherit from your Will. The witnesses must be of sound mind and legal age.
5. Bring your witnesses together in a room. If for some reason you don’t personally know the witnesses, introduce yourself so that the witnesses will be able to say it was you they saw sign the Will.
6. Fill in the blanks for the date and for the witnesses with their full name(s), address, phone number(s) and occupation(s) in the space provided (please print clearly).
7. Tell the witnesses that the document that they are going to witness you sign is your Will. Tell them that you have read it, understand it, and approve of its contents.
8. You can then sign your Will and initial at the bottom of each page.
9. Each witnesses signs in turn, while the other witnesses watch. The witnesses shouldinitial each page as well.
10. In some States three witnesses are required (Vermont, New Hampshire and South Carolina). Having an extra witness will not invalidate a Will and therefore if you want to have three witnesses watch you sign, that would be fine.
11. When everyone has signed, your Will is legally binding.

Congratulations on creating and legally executing your Wills4Free Will! Keep your Will in a safe place, inform your Executor of its location, and don’t forget to review it periodically to make sure it still reflects your wishes.