What do you do with your wills?

[Anonymous]

DH and I finally got wills and advanced medical directives. We have a safe in our house and were thinking we'd just store them in there, and give extra keys to our siblings (to whom we give custody of our children if we both die). I'm wondering if it makes sense to make copies and store elsewhere. I assume that even if they had a copy, a court wouldn't accept it?

[Anonymous]

bumping your post. curious about people's answers to your question.

[Anonymous]

Good question OP. Your attorney should have a copy. The problem with that is, if you and your spouse died together, would any of your relatives know the name of your attorney? I guess I should give a copy to my executor. Hoping an attorney chimes in here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, did you talk to a human attorney or a robot? Even the robot can tell you what to do.

This actually is a very valid question, as the original copy matters most in terms of expediting things. A bank safe deposit box is an option, but there could be access issues for third parties.

[Anonymous]

We keep ours in a fire safe box in our home office. Our adult kids know where the box is and have the keys to access it should something happen to both of us at the same time. Our kids also have the name and phone number of the office of the attorney who wrote our wills and also have copes, and we’ve told them that it would be easiest for them to have the attorney guide them through the process.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a good local friend who could hang onto a copy for you? I've done that for a friend (it's ina sealed enveloppe, I'm not involved at all other than as an extra safe keeper).

[Anonymous]

On file with lawyers and in the filing cabinet in our home office. Kids are now young adults, but when they were little and spouse and I traveled, and grandparents would stay at the house with our kids, I would leave it out in a manilla envelope on the desk with a post it, "just in case."

[Anonymous]

Ours sits on a shelf under my husband’s piles of documents. It’s unlikely that everything (including both of us) will be destroyed in a fire.

[Anonymous]

Aren't these typically registered with the county?

[Anonymous]

My brother has a PDF.

[Anonymous]

We keep the originals in a safe in our house. Our lawyer specifically said they will not maintain the original in their files. We provided relatives on both sides of the family (who will be our executors and guardians of our children) with an instruction sheet on where we keep the important documents. This included the combo to our safe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aren't these typically registered with the county?

Our attorney advised us to register our wills with the county court. A family member also has a copy.

[Anonymous]

lawyer has copy, we have copy in house (fire safe), and executor has copy along with a memo with information and contacts they would need should something happen to us (lawyer, financial adviser, business partners, etc)

[Anonymous]

Ours is registered with our county, and we have another copy in a fire safe box in our house. Though that would take anyone forever to find it…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aren't these typically registered with the county?

Yes.

You can do this yourself or pay an attorney a reasonable fee to do it for you.

We also have digital copies on our computers.