•Says digital property planning will broaden alternatives for legal professionals
Wale Igbintade
A Nigerian know-how firm, Castle eWill and Trust Limited, has launched a digital estate-planning platform designed to simplify Will preparation, encourage succession planning and make estate-planning providers extra accessible to Nigerians.
The platform allows adults to put together, replace, securely retailer and handle their Wills and Trusts on-line, with the intention of serving to people shield their households, protect their property and make sure that their needs are revered after dying.
The Chief Executive Officer of the corporate, Mr Olumide Olaiya, stated the initiative was based on the assumption that everybody ought to have the chance to plan for the way forward for their family members, no matter their monetary circumstances or location.
According to him, the corporate hopes to develop into Africa’s most trusted digital platform for property planning, Will preparation, Trust administration and probate help.
Olaiya stated many Nigerians postponed getting ready Wills as a result of they thought of the method uncomfortable, sophisticated or related solely to rich people.
He defined that Castle eWill was searching for to change the notion by offering an accessible start line for property planning whereas encouraging customers to get hold of applicable skilled authorized recommendation.
The platform’s Will preparation course of includes 5 levels, starting with the availability of private info, adopted by particulars of executors, trustees, beneficiaries and property.
Users are subsequently required to present particulars of their items and needs, provide details about witnesses, and evaluate and ensure the doc earlier than printing it and submitting it to the related High Court Probate Registry.
Olaiya stated the method was designed to make Will preparation extra simple whereas incorporating safeguards to shield customers’ info and help the authentication of their paperwork.
On information safety, the corporate stated information have been encrypted earlier than being written to disk, whereas makes an attempt to entry them have been logged.
The platform additionally incorporates identity-verification measures, together with electronic mail affirmation, authentication of government-issued identification paperwork and comparability with a reside digicam test.
According to the corporate, these measures are meant to set up that the person making a Will is the individual recognized within the doc.
Another characteristic is a QR seal connected to each Will generated by means of the platform.
Castle eWill stated scanning the code allows recipients to confirm the doc’s identification, model and date of issuance, serving to establishments, together with banks and registries, decide whether or not a replica is real and present.
The platform additionally sends reminders encouraging subscribers to evaluate their Wills each 12 months and following vital life occasions that might have an effect on their property plans.
Such occasions embody marriage, the delivery of a kid and the acquisition of property.
Addressing issues that digital Will-making providers might diminish the position of authorized practitioners, Castle eWill maintained that its platform was meant to broaden, relatively than undermine, alternatives for legal professionals.
The firm argued that making property planning extra accessible might deliver extra Nigerians who had by no means consulted legal professionals about Wills or Trusts into the method, thereby creating extra demand for skilled authorized providers.
The firm additionally expressed its intention to collaborate with legal professionals throughout Nigeria to present these providers.
Drawing a comparability with developments within the banking trade, Castle eWill stated the introduction of web banking and cell purposes had expanded entry to banking providers relatively than eradicated the necessity for banks and banking professionals.
It maintained {that a} related method might apply to authorized providers, with know-how serving to extra individuals take step one in direction of succession planning whereas legal professionals present the experience required to handle complicated authorized points.
According to the corporate, skilled authorized recommendation stays significantly essential in estates involving sophisticated household buildings, company property, collectively owned properties, customary and Islamic regulation, international property, taxation, guardianship, enterprise succession and competing claims amongst beneficiaries.
The firm maintained that know-how might widen entry to property planning, whereas skilled authorized judgment remained important to guaranteeing that people and households acquired applicable recommendation and that their needs have been correctly documented and applied.
