The ancient practice of making a will to take care of your property and assets dates all the back beyond ancient Greece. As most people understand it, a will here in the United States traces its legal form and basis back to the seventeenth century and is based on English law. For many centuries one of the prime requirements to validate a will whether hand-written or drawn up by an attorney — or even tapped out on a computer at home — was that it had to be signed in black ink and done so in front of witnesses.
But the push to make Electronic contract signing legal for trusts and wills, which allows online signatures, is growing. This procedure would make lawyers and notaries superfluous. Behind this push is a group called Uniform Law Commission. The nonprofit group is advising states on how to pass a Uniform Electronic Last Will and Testament Act, which would normalize cyber-will writing
Several states already have laws on the books that make e-signatures binding for wills, without the presence of a notary or an attorney. These include Indiana, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida. More states are expected to follow suite in the coming two years.
So the day is fast approaching, at least for Americans, when their last will and testament will not exist as a musty piece of paper, but as something that is stored in the cloud.
