Keeping the will up to date¶
An inheritance transaction spends specific UTXOs. If those UTXOs change, the transaction the Will-Executors are holding becomes invalid — so the will has to be rebuilt.
The plugin handles this for you: every time you close Electrum it checks your balance and UTXO set, and if something changed it asks you to refresh the will. You confirm the signature; it never signs on your behalf.
This is what makes it practical to use an inheritance-ready wallet for everyday transactions.
What triggers a refresh¶
- You receive funds.
- You spend funds.
- You add, remove, or edit an heir.
- You change the delivery date.
Postponing vs anticipating¶
The two directions are not symmetric, and the difference has a real cost:
Bringing the delivery date forward is cheap. The plugin signs a new inheritance with an earlier locktime and sends it to the Will-Executors. Because it becomes valid sooner, it supersedes the previously distributed transaction — no on-chain fee.
This is also how balance and heir changes are handled: the will is anticipated by one day and redistributed, without invalidating the old one on-chain.
Pushing the delivery date back requires invalidating the committed coins on-chain first. Otherwise a Will-Executor still holding the old, earlier-locktime transaction could broadcast it and execute the inheritance too early.
That invalidation is a real Bitcoin transaction: you sign it and it costs a miner fee.
Tip
If you expect to adjust the date often, plan for it: a rolling deadline that you re-anticipate is cheaper than repeatedly postponing.
Watch-only copies on other devices¶
If you monitor the same wallet from another device using its public key (Zpub/Xpub), funds arriving there are not added to the inheritance automatically. Open the wallet in Electrum with the plugin so it can pick up the new UTXOs and re-send the updated will to the Will-Executors.
The same seed on multiple devices invalidates the inheritance
Using the same seed on more than one device is strongly discouraged in general. With BAL it has a specific consequence: spending even a single satoshi from the other device changes the wallet's UTXO structure, and the nodes will discard the inheritance transaction when the Will-Executors try to broadcast it.
How often to renew¶
Renewing is not strictly required, but it is recommended roughly every 2–3 years. A practical approach is a rolling deadline — "always five years from today" — refreshed at regular intervals.
Renewing serves two purposes: it lets you include Will-Executors that joined the network in the meantime (and drop the ones that shut down), and it picks up future protocol changes.