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

If you made a Will online

Virginia spells out how a Will is executed. Under Va. Code § 64.2-403, a Will is in writing and signed by you, or by another in your presence and at your direction, in a manner showing the name is intended as a signature; a Will wholly in your handwriting is valid if two disinterested witnesses prove the handwriting and signature, and any other Will only if you sign or acknowledge it before two competent witnesses, present at the same time, who subscribe it in your presence. A Will may be made self-proved (Va. Code § 64.2-452). A document you only downloaded is not yet a Will.

Virginia lets you make a Will self-proved, when signed or later, by your acknowledgment and the witnesses' affidavits before an officer authorized to administer oaths, with the officer's certificate attached (Va. Code § 64.2-452) — so the witnesses need not be found after your death to prove it.

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. During your lifetime you, or your attorney, may lodge your Will for safekeeping with the clerk of the circuit court where you reside, sealed until it is returned on your request or you die (Va. Code § 64.2-409). 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. Virginia creates a trust only when a settlor with capacity indicates an intention to create it, there is a definite beneficiary, the trustee has duties to perform, and the same person is not both sole trustee and sole beneficiary (Va. Code § 64.2-720); an oral trust's terms need clear and convincing evidence (Va. Code § 64.2-725), and a revocable trust is amended or revoked by substantial compliance with the method its terms provide or, where none, by any method showing clear and convincing evidence of your intent (Va. Code § 64.2-751(C)). If anything about your online Trust's signing is unclear, raise it first with a Virginia 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 Va. Code § 64.2-804, 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 trust or its trustee (Va. Code § 64.2-772) — the title, any mortgage, the entireties rules (Va. Code § 55.1-136) and the spouse's elective share all interact. This one is genuinely a question for a Virginia 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 Virginia's formalities — for a Will, in writing and signed by you (or by another in your presence and at your direction), and either wholly in your handwriting or signed or acknowledged by you in the presence of two competent witnesses, present at the same time, who subscribe it in your presence (Va. Code § 64.2-403)? A Will may also be made self-proved with the witnesses' affidavits before a notary (Va. Code § 64.2-452).
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 Virginia, 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 two 60-day notice clocks under Va. Code § 64.2-775(A) — 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 Uniform Trust Code speak to your answers, and the organizer extracts what a signed Virginia Trust says — names, dates, provisions — with a source for each. Your successor trustee will not have to figure it out alone.