Your $20 AI Generated Will Could Cost Your Family Thousands

Your $20 AI Generated Will Could Be the Most Expensive Document You Ever Leave Behind

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is rapidly reshaping the legal landscape, promising wills in minutes for pennies, or even for free.

Convenient? Absolutely.

But what looks like smart savings today could ultimately cost your family tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, years of delay, and turn an already difficult loss into a prolonged family dispute. 

Because the real question isn’t what your will costs you to make. It’s what it could cost your family to fix.

A Will Is More Than a Document

A will is one of the most important legal documents you’ll ever make. It determines who inherits your assets, who you trust to administer your estate, and who will care for your minor children. It can also establish trusts, provide for dependents, and set out specific gifts and instructions for after you’re gone.

But a will is only as effective as the planning behind it.

In British Columbia, wills are governed by provincial legislation and an evolving body of common law. These laws determine not only how a will must be prepared and executed, but also the circumstances in which it can be challenged after your death.

Your Will Can Be Challenged

A will can be challenged after your death in two primary ways.

The first is a wills variation claim under British Columbia’s Wills, Estates and Succession Act (WESA). Will makers must make adequate provision for the proper maintenance and support of their spouse and children. If a will falls short, the court can vary its terms to make the provision it considers adequate, just and equitable in the circumstances. This means you cannot necessarily disinherit an adult child simply because they are financially independent or you have been estranged for years.

The second is a challenge to the will’s validity. Unlike a wills variation claim, which can only be brought by a spouse or child, a validity challenge may be brought by anyone with a sufficient legal or financial interest in the estate.

Validity Is More Than a Signature

A valid will must satisfy specific legal requirements.

The will maker must be at least 16 years old, the will must be in writing, and it must be signed by the will maker in the presence of two witnesses who are present at the same time. Each witness must be at least 19 years old. If a beneficiary acts as a witness, the gift to that beneficiary may be void.

Meeting these formalities alone, however, does not guarantee that a will is legally valid.

The will maker must also have the requisite mental capacity to make a will. This means they must understand the nature and effect of making a will, the extent of their property, the people who might reasonably expect to benefit from their estate, and how their decisions affect the distribution of their assets.

A will can also be challenged on the grounds of undue influence, where pressure or coercion is alleged to have overpowered the will maker’s free will.

If a will is challenged, the court may look beyond the document itself. Evidence of the will maker’s intentions, personal circumstances, and mental capacity at the time the will was prepared can become critical.

This is where a lawyer’s involvement can make a meaningful difference.

A lawyer can document the will maker’s instructions, assess and record concerns about capacity or undue influence, and maintain detailed notes about the preparation and execution of the will. If the will is later challenged, this contemporaneous evidence may be used to establish the will maker’s intentions and whether those intentions were freely and competently expressed.

A lawyer is doing more than producing a document. They are asking questions, identifying risks, documenting instructions, and creating a record of the decisions behind the will.

That is one of the fundamental differences between an AI-generated document and a professionally prepared will. An AI tool can generate words on a page, but it cannot independently assess your circumstances, investigate potential concerns, or create the same professional record of the process behind your decisions.

AI Only Knows What You Tell It

An AI-generated will is only as good as the information you feed it.

You don’t know what you don’t know. And AI may not know what to ask.

AI can generate a document based on your answers, but it may not recognize the complexities of your family relationships, identify risks you haven’t considered, or anticipate the legal consequences of your decisions. Its output depends entirely on the information you provide and the questions the platform asks.

And if the right questions are never asked, important issues can go unaddressed entirely.

Consider a few situations where estate planning can become considerably more complicated:

·         Blended Families and Second Marriages:  If your spouse is not the biological or legally adoptive parent of your children, they have no legal obligation to provide for them after your death. Without careful planning, your spouse could inherit assets outright, potentially leaving your children with little or nothing from your estate.

·         Beneficiaries with Disabilities: An outright inheritance could affect a beneficiary’s eligibility for disability-related benefits. Appropriate trust planning may be required to protect their inheritance while preserving access to important support programs.

·         Tax Planning:  The tax consequences of death depend on the nature, ownership, and disposition of your assets. A family home, investment portfolio, business, and registered accounts can each raise different considerations. Depending on your circumstances, strategic planning during your lifetime, trusts, or carefully structured beneficiary designations may help manage tax liabilities.

·         Business Interests: If you own a business, your estate plan needs to account for what happens to your shares and other business assets when you die. In some circumstances, a separate restricted will may be appropriate, depending on the assets involved and the applicable legal requirements, potentially reducing probate fees.

These aren’t hypothetical concerns. They’re the kinds of details that can determine whether your estate plan actually achieves what you intended.

The problem isn’t that AI can’t write a will. It’s that it may not recognize when the will it writes isn’t the will you actually need.

Your Will May Be Only One Piece of the Plan

A well-designed estate plan rarely begins and ends with a will.

How your assets are owned, who is named as a beneficiary, whether trusts are appropriate, and what steps you take during your lifetime can all affect how your estate is ultimately distributed.

Depending on your circumstances, strategies such as family trusts, spousal trusts, or lifetime transfers may help manage tax, preserve wealth, and ensure your assets pass as intended.

But these strategies require more than choosing options from a menu. They require an understanding of your assets, your family dynamics, your long-term goals, and the legal and tax consequences of each decision.

There Is Another Important Consideration: Privacy and Confidentiality

Estate planning requires you to disclose some of the most sensitive information about your life: your bank accounts, investments, insurance, business interests, family relationships, assets, liabilities, and financial plans.

Before entering that information into an AI platform, you should understand how your information is collected, stored, and retained, whether it is used for other purposes, and who may have access to or receive it. Depending on the platform and its terms, information may be accessible to service providers, affiliates, or other third parties.

When you retain a lawyer for legal advice, communications between solicitor and client are confidential and protected by solicitor client privilege. Lawyers in British Columbia also have professional obligations to protect client information and take security measures against loss, destruction, and unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.

When it comes to your estate, privacy shouldn’t be an afterthought. It’s part of protecting what you’ve spent a lifetime building.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

The irony is that the very reason people turn to AI-generated wills, to save money, can end up costing their families far more.

A wills variation claim or validity dispute can involve extensive legal work, including gathering evidence, examining the circumstances surrounding the will’s preparation and signing, negotiating with beneficiaries, and potentially going to trial.

What began as a free estate plan can leave an estate facing tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, years of delay, and a significant loss of assets. Meanwhile, grieving family members may find themselves locked in a costly legal battle with their own loved ones over how the estate should be distributed.

The AI-generated will may have been free, but the dispute certainly won’t be.

AI Has a Role. It Does Not Replace Estate Planning

AI can generate a will. But generating a document and creating an effective estate plan are two very different things.

At Coast Mountain Law, our estate planning team takes the time to understand your circumstances, ask the right questions, identify potential risks, and explain your options. We prepare the documents and safeguards needed to reflect your wishes, address the complexities of your situation, and reduce the risk of costly disputes or unintended consequences.

Estate planning isn’t just about deciding who gets what. It’s about protecting your family, preserving what you’ve built, and making things easier for the people you leave behind.

Contact a member of our team today at info@coastmountainlaw.com or 604.892.5254.