Made a Will or Trust online? What happens next in Georgia

If you made a Will online

Georgia spells out how a Will is executed. Under O.C.G.A. § 53-4-20, a Will is in writing, signed by you (or by someone in your presence and at your express direction) and attested and subscribed in your presence by two or more competent witnesses; Georgia recognizes no unwitnessed handwritten Will. A self-proving affidavit before a notary proves it without the witnesses' testimony (§ 53-4-24). A document you only downloaded is not yet a Will.

Add the self-proving affidavit if you can. Under O.C.G.A. § 53-4-24, a notarized self-proving affidavit lets the probate court accept the Will without tracking down your witnesses years later — a small step now that saves your family real friction.

A Will does not avoid probate. It is the instruction sheet FOR probate — the court process that moves what you owned to the people you named. If avoiding probate was the goal, that is a different tool.

The original document matters. After your death, whoever has possession of your Will files it with the probate court with reasonable promptness (O.C.G.A. § 53-5-5). Someone you trust needs to know it exists and where it is — a PDF in an app only you can open does not meet the moment.

If you made a Trust online

Check how it was made. In Georgia an express trust is created or declared in a writing signed by the settlor, with the intention to create it, the trust property, a beneficiary and a trustee ascertainable with reasonable certainty (O.C.G.A. § 53-12-20); a settlor may revoke or modify the trust only if the instrument expressly reserves the power, by a writing the settlor signs (§ 53-12-40). If anything about your online Trust's signing is unclear, raise it first with a Georgia attorney.

Funding is the step most people never finish. A Trust only controls assets that are titled in its name (or that name it by beneficiary designation). Signing creates the container; funding fills it. Unfunded assets generally go through probate anyway — the exact outcome the Trust was bought to avoid.

You will want a certification of Trust. Under O.C.G.A. § 53-12-280, banks and brokerages can accept a short certification instead of reading the whole document — it proves the Trust exists and who the trustee is while keeping the private terms private.

Your home and the Trust: real property reaches a trust by a deed to the trustee, recorded where the transferor is a trustee (O.C.G.A. § 53-12-25) — the title, any mortgage and the family's year's support all interact. This one is genuinely a question for a Georgia attorney.

Is it actually finished? A six-question check

If you can answer yes to all six, your online document is far more likely to do its job when it matters:

1. 1Was it executed with Georgia's formalities — for a Will, in writing, signed by you and attested and subscribed in your presence by two or more competent witnesses (O.C.G.A. § 53-4-20), ideally with the self-proving affidavit before a notary (§ 53-4-24)?
2. 2For a Trust: has every intended asset been retitled into it — or given a beneficiary designation that matches the plan?
3. 3Do your beneficiary designations (life insurance, retirement accounts) agree with the document instead of quietly overriding it?
4. 4Does the person you named — personal representative or successor trustee — know they were named, and where the original is?
5. 5Are the originals stored safely AND findably — not only inside a vendor's app that you alone can open?
6. 6Has the plan been re-read after major life changes — marriage, divorce, a move into or out of Georgia, a new child?

What happens later — when someone has to use it

For a Trust, the day you die your successor trustee inherits statutory duties immediately — including the 60-day notice clock under O.C.G.A. § 53-12-242(a), which runs from the date the Trust became irrevocable — usually while grieving. The kindest thing you can do today is make sure they will know what they are holding and where to start.

That is the job TrusteeClear was built for: the free role check shows which sections of the Georgia Trust Code speak to your answers, and the organizer extracts what a signed Georgia Trust says — names, dates, provisions — with a source for each. Your successor trustee will not have to figure it out alone.