You Just Signed Your Will. Here's the One Step Most People Skip.

You did the hard part. You met the lawyer, you signed the will, maybe a power of attorney and a healthcare directive too. It probably cost real money and took real courage to sit down and do it.

Now, a question almost nobody asks at the signing table: if something happened to you tomorrow, could the people you chose actually find any of it?

A signed will nobody can find is barely a will at all

Here's the uncomfortable part. In most places, if the original signed will can't be found after someone dies, courts start from the presumption that the person destroyed it on purpose, which can mean the will is treated as revoked and the estate is divided by default rules instead of your wishes. A will locked in a safe nobody knows about, or in a safe deposit box only you can open, can be just as useless as no will at all.

The same is true for everything else your family will need: the passwords, the life insurance policy details, the account list, the message you meant to leave. If you're the only one who knows where it all lives, your plan has a single point of failure: you.

The post-signing checklist (do this within a week of signing)

1. Decide where the original lives, and tell two people. Home safe, your lawyer's office, or a court registry are all fine options. What matters is that at least two trusted people know exactly where it is and how to get to it. "Someone will figure it out" is not a plan.
2. Don't put passwords in the will. Wills become public documents during probate. Keep passwords and login details somewhere private and separate, and make sure someone knows that place exists.
3. Write down the map, not just the keys. Your executor needs a list of what exists: bank accounts, insurance policies, subscriptions, digital accounts, the lawyer's name and number. They can't act on accounts they don't know about.
4. Set up delivery, not just storage. This is the step everyone skips. Storage answers "where is it?" Delivery answers "who gets it, and when?" A document sitting in a drawer still depends on someone finding the drawer. Decide now who receives what, and make sure it reaches them even if you're not around to hand it over.
5. Tell your people the plan exists. You don't have to share the contents. Just tell your executor and your trusted contacts: "I have a plan, here's where it starts." That one conversation removes the worst part of grief admin: the guessing.

The gap this closes

Most estate planning stops at step 1: the documents exist. Farwell exists for steps 2 to 5. You set a check-in schedule, prepare the emails and files for the people you choose, and if you ever go quiet, Farwell verifies first, reminders, then your trusted contacts, before anything is delivered. Nobody sees anything until it's actually needed.

It takes a few minutes, it's free to start, and it turns a signed will into a plan someone can actually carry out.

This is general information, not legal advice. For questions about your specific situation, especially where originals must be filed in your jurisdiction, ask the lawyer or notary who prepared your documents.