What If No One Finds Your Will?

It sounds unthinkable—yet it happens all the time.

Someone passes away, leaving behind what they believed was a carefully planned estate. A Will was drafted, decisions were made, roles assigned. Everything, they thought, was in order.

But when the moment comes, no one knows where the Will actually is.

Maybe they assume it’s with a lawyer, though they can’t recall which one. Maybe it was tucked away in a fireproof safe, but no one has the combination. Sometimes the only copy is in a folder marked “taxes” at the back of a closet no one has touched in years. In those moments, even the best intentions start to unravel.

After her father passed, Emily and her two siblings gathered in his condo to begin settling his affairs. He’d always said his Will was handled—he used that exact phrase: “handled.” But when they went looking for it, nothing turned up. The safe couldn’t be opened. His emails gave no clue. No one could remember which lawyer he’d used, or even if he’d updated it in the last decade.

What followed wasn’t chaos, exactly. It was slower and more corrosive than that. The estate froze. Accounts were locked. They filed court documents and waited for rulings. And slowly, each sibling began to second-guess the others. Was someone hiding something? Was there a version of the Will they hadn’t seen? Had Dad made promises he didn’t write down?

Eventually, they found the Will. It had been sitting in a manila envelope labeled “Dad’s Taxes 2012.” What could have been resolved in a few days took nearly eight months.

That story isn’t unusual. In fact, it’s disturbingly common.

The Canadian Bar Association reports that over half of Canadians don’t have a Will at all, and among those who do, many haven’t updated or properly stored it. In the U.S., a 2024 survey by Caring.com found that 67% of adults don’t have an up-to-date Will. But even having one isn’t enough if no one knows it exists—or where it is.

Wills often end up scattered across disconnected locations: with a lawyer who’s retired, in a bank box no one can access, at a cottage drawer forgotten over the years. Some people never tell anyone they even made one. Others update their Will, but forget to destroy older versions, leaving behind layers of ambiguity. And in today’s mobile world, crossing provinces or states can make tracking documents even more complicated, with local laws and jurisdictions further muddying the waters.

When a Will can’t be found, the law often assumes there wasn’t one. That means the estate is settled according to default rules—which might distribute assets in a way the deceased never intended. Children inherit before spouses. Friends or charities named in conversation are forgotten by the courts. The nuances and wishes that defined someone’s life are reduced to paperwork protocol.

The legal implications are frustrating enough. But it’s the emotional toll that’s often hardest. Loved ones begin to argue. Trust erodes. Executors, who were once confident in their role, are caught between loyalty and legality. Grief becomes tangled in bureaucracy.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Estate planning isn’t just about having documents—it’s about ensuring those documents can be found, understood, and acted upon at the right time. That means naming an executor and letting them know where your Will is kept. It means destroying outdated versions. It means having a way to track not only what you own, but who should be involved when the time comes. And for many, it means going a step further—leaving a Letter of Wishes to explain the meaning behind the decisions and provide the kind of guidance a legal form never could.

Trusty doesn’t replace the legal process. In most jurisdictions, courts still require a physical, signed Will to proceed. But Trusty exists to ensure that when the time comes, the people who need your documents actually know where to find them. It’s a digital companion to your estate plan—one that logs where your Will is stored, who your key contacts are, and how to access related documents when they matter most.

More importantly, it brings humanity back to the process. With Trusty, you can leave video messages, assign heirs, and give your executor the tools and clarity they’ll need to honour your legacy—not just legally, but emotionally too.

Because the best estate plan in the world is only useful if it’s found.

And when it is, it should speak clearly.