There may be potential problems with self made Wills. First, I would like to make a distinction between self made Wills where you copy some one else’s Will or draft your Will all by yourself versus having a guided approach. When you create a self made Will, where you copy and modify an existing Will, chances are there will be mistakes that you create or you may overlook something.
A common mistake a person inexperience in drafting their Will is giving everything to say A, and then later specify an individual item, say a car to B. This confusion will cause problems later on when A or B starts to dispute the Will. Another potential mistake is getting the percentages or fractions wrong and leaving some portion not distributed. For instance, you give 50% of your home to your spouse, 30% to son No.1 and then forgot you have another 20% left over. You can overcome this by having else go through your Will.
Writing a Will without having a residual clause is another common mistake. I’ve seen quite a few such Wills. With this mistake, what happens is that your estate is considered partial intestate i.e. your Will did not cover your entire estate. This can happen when you acquired additional assets but did not re-write your Will. It can happen if someone else dies and you become the beneficiary of a property.
These are pitfalls if you modify someone else’s Will or if you draft the whole Will yourself. However, with Wills that are written with software whether installed in your computer or online, the software is designed to catch such mistakes. Good quality software will prevent you from writing such mistakes even if you deliberately try to do so.
Having mentioned all this, I do know that you may have concerns whether Wills written online or using software are valid or not. The answer is the Wills written online or using software are generally valid provided you follow all the instructions especially when it comes to signing the Will. A few states in the US has slightly different requirement.
The things that makes a Will invalid is the same, whether you do so online or done through an attorney. For example, you signed the Will first and later asked your witnesses to sign. So although the Will is signed, someone may dispute the Will by saying your witnesses did not actually see you sign the Will.
Online Will services from reputable companies will have all the necessary clauses and are safe to use.
Now, if you are still uncomfortable with the whole idea of doing your own Will, then the best option for you is to see an attorney or estate planning professional. If you are comfortable to write your own Will, then such services help save you a lot of money and is perfectly legal.