Estate and inheritance disputes, evidence sealed in 48 hours
An inheritance dispute is decided by who can prove what was said.
ProofSnap seals evidence for an inheritance dispute: send the family chat export, the emails or the scanned documents, and within 48 hours you get a numbered transcript and a signed package with an eIDAS qualified timestamp that anyone can verify. From $44.99, with 48-hour delivery worldwide throughout 2026.
In the European Union a qualified timestamp carries a presumption that the date and time it shows are accurate, under Article 41(2) of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014.
The will nobody will produce. The sibling who holds the documents and stops answering. The promise about the flat that was only ever made in a message. That conversation is usually the only record of what really happened, and right now it lives on one phone.
We work from the original export, not from screenshots: every message in send order, every photograph and voice note where it was sent, and each entry numbered, so your lawyer can cite entry 412 instead of passing around a folder of pictures.
Not sure whether what you have is usable? Write to us first and we will tell you what is worth sealing before you pay for anything.
This stays between you and us. We work only from the files you send, we never log in to your accounts, we never contact anyone in your family, and after we hand over your package we delete your data from our servers.
One-time payment · no subscription · the sealed package is yours to keep.
Delivered in 48 hours · eIDAS qualified timestamp included · Verifiable by anyone
Family
3 participants
Brother
I have the original deed here. I will send it to the notary this week.
14 Feb, 11:03
Thank you. The hearing is in April, we cannot be late again.
14 Feb, 11:10
Brother
Here is the first page for now.
14 Feb, 11:12
Brother
This message was deleted
2 Mar, 21:48
Illustrative example. Names and messages are fictional.
Every package can be checked by anyone, for free, in the open Trust Verifier.
Quick answer
How do I prove what my family agreed about the estate?
Export the conversation from the messaging app, gather the emails and the documents people sent you, and have the whole set sealed before anything is deleted. We put every message in send order, number each entry so it can be cited in a filing, place each photograph and voice note where it was sent, hash every file, and seal the result with a signature, a Bitcoin anchor and an eIDAS qualified timestamp. The package is delivered within 48 hours and anyone can verify it without trusting us. From $44.99.
What it proves: that your files existed in that exact state no later than the timestamp, and that nothing has changed since. What it does not prove: who was holding the phone. ProofSnap is an evidence tool, not legal advice.
What an inheritance or probate dispute actually runs on
Wills and deeds are only half of it. The other half is the everyday record: who promised what, who was holding the documents, who was told about the hearing, what the property looked like before it was emptied. That record is scattered across six or seven places, and all of it can be sealed.
The family chat
Years of WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram in which the promises were made, the documents were passed around and the excuses were made.
Emails with the notary or solicitor
What was requested, what was sent, and on what date. The header data inside the original message is what makes this hard to dispute.
Photographed documents
The death certificate, a page of the will, a bank statement, a deed. Families send these as pictures, and pictures are easy to attack unless they are sealed.
The property online
A house from the estate listed for sale, a rental advertisement, a land registry page, an obituary. Web pages change, and a sealed capture fixes what was published and when.
Video and voice
A video of the house before it was cleared, a recorded family meeting, a voice note in which the promise was actually made.
Files you already hold
Scans, spreadsheets of expenses you paid on behalf of the deceased, receipts for the funeral, photographs of the contents of the house.
Or we do it for you
You send a link or the files. We send back a signed, timestamped package a court can check, within 48 hours.
A chat export is the file the app gives you when you tap Export chat. We render it as a readable transcript, hash every file and timestamp the result, so the other side cannot argue the messages were edited.
What evidence to preserve, and in what order
People ask what evidence is needed to contest a will or to protect your share of an estate. Most of it is already in your hands, and the order below is the order in which it disappears.
- 1The conversation itself. Export the chat where the estate was discussed, with media included. Someone can leave the group, close the account or replace the phone, and any of those can end your access to the conversation.
- 2The documents people sent you. Photographs of a death certificate, a page of a will, a deed or a bank statement. They usually arrive inside the chat, which is why we seal the chat and those documents together rather than separately.
- 3Correspondence with the professionals. Emails with the notary, the solicitor or the executor, saved as files rather than printed, because the header data inside a saved message is what makes a date hard to dispute.
- 4Anything published online. The estate property listed for sale, a rental advertisement, a registry entry, an obituary. Pages are edited and taken down, and a sealed capture fixes what was published and on what date.
When the promise about the house was only ever made in a message
Many estate arguments turn on a promise nobody put in a will: you were told the flat would be yours, you were told to keep paying the bills, you moved back to look after someone on the strength of it. Claims built on that kind of promise live or die on the everyday record, because there is no document to produce. The messages are the document.
Which is why the way the messages are produced matters more here than anywhere else. A promise quoted from a screenshot invites the answer that the screenshot was made yesterday. The same promise as entry 412 of a sealed transcript, sitting in three years of ordinary conversation about certificates and hospital visits, with a timestamp over the whole set, is a different piece of evidence. The context around the sentence is what makes it believable, and a screenshot is exactly what removes the context.
Why the folder of screenshots on your desktop will not win the case
Nobody doubts that the messages exist. They doubt your copy of them.
| What you have now | What a sealed package has instead |
|---|---|
| Images anyone could have edited in two minutes | A signature and a timestamp on the whole set, checkable by anyone |
| Hundreds of pictures in no fixed order | One document, every entry numbered, in send order |
| Photographs and voice notes in a separate folder, if at all | Each file placed where it was sent, hashed and counted |
| No way to say what is missing from the set | The arithmetic is printed: what was referenced, what was found and what is missing |
| Impossible to cite in a filing | "Entry 412" points to one line that both sides can find |
If the phone is still in your hands, read the step-by-step export instructions on the WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram page. The export itself takes about a minute.
Three years of family chat, one transcript
A recent estate matter, with the parties and the country withheld.
messages spanning three years
photographs and documents shared in the chat
pages of numbered transcript delivered
Relatives in two countries spent three years arguing about an estate in messages: who would obtain which certificate, who was holding the company papers, who had already filed what. Everything that mattered was in one conversation on one phone, mixed in with birthdays and health news.
The export was not straightforward. The phone that produced it had the messaging app set to a different language from the one the family actually wrote in, so the file used that language for its own markers and wrote dates in the order used in that language's region. We derived the day and month order from the data itself rather than assuming it, and we said so in the transcript. The messages themselves were left exactly as written, in every language and script they were written in.
Of 165 references to shared files, 158 distinct files existed in the folder. Every one was placed at the point in the conversation where it was sent, given a caption burned into the image so a page break can never separate a picture from the entry it belongs to, and hashed. Seventeen messages had been deleted: thirteen by the other party and four from the account that produced the export. We wrote that down, with the numbers, because opposing counsel would have found it and used the silence. We listed the two places where the clock ran backwards between messages instead of quietly smoothing them over.
What the client received was one document that can be cited line by line, the original export and all 158 files preserved untouched beside it, and a seal over the whole set that anyone can check. The first draft went through two internal audits before delivery, one of them carried out from the point of view of the other side's lawyer, looking for a way to attack it.
What the other side will say, and what is in the package
Family disputes get personal, and the attack usually lands on your evidence rather than on the facts. Each of these is answered inside the package before it is raised.
| The objection | The answer already in the package |
|---|---|
| "You typed this yourself in a word processor." | The set is signed and carries a qualified timestamp from a qualified trust service provider on the EU Trusted List, plus a Bitcoin anchor. Anyone can check both for free. |
| "You left out the parts that do not suit you." | Deleted messages are counted and attributed, including any deleted from the account that produced the export. Nothing is quietly dropped. |
| "The dates are wrong." | An export writes dates in the format of the phone that produced it. We determine the day and month order from the data and state which format was used. |
| "Where are the files he says he sent?" | Every reference to a shared file is matched against the folder, and the count of referenced, found and missing files is printed in the transcript. |
| "The messages are out of order." | Entries stay in the order the export gives them, and any place where the clock runs backwards is listed rather than corrected. |
| "Which message are you even talking about?" | Every entry is numbered, so a filing can point at one line and both sides can find it in seconds. |
Each of those answers is in the transcript itself, in writing, before anyone asks the question.
From "it is all on my phone" to sealed, in four steps
You never install anything and you never give us access to an account.
Export the conversation
Open the chat, choose Export chat and include media. You get one text file plus the photographs, voice notes and videos that were shared. Do it before anyone leaves the group or changes their phone.
Gather the rest
Save the emails from the notary or solicitor as files, put your scans and photographs in one folder, and copy the link to any web page or video that matters. If you are not sure what counts, write to us and ask first.
Pay and upload
Pay for the item you need. A secure upload page opens right after payment, so nothing sensitive travels by email. Several items in one matter can be sent together.
Receive the sealed package
Within 48 hours you get a private download link. Inside is the numbered transcript, your originals untouched, and everything needed to prove the set has not changed since the moment it was stamped.
What you get back
One ZIP file, yours to keep, with nothing in it that depends on us staying in business.
The transcript
Every message in send order, each entry numbered, each shared file shown at the point it was sent, and a plain statement of how the file was read and what it does and does not show.
Your originals, untouched
The export exactly as your phone produced it, and every photograph, document, voice note and video that came with it.
A fingerprint of every file
A SHA-256 hash of each file and a signed manifest covering the whole set, so a single changed byte is detectable.
Two independent proofs of time
An eIDAS qualified timestamp issued by Disig a.s., a Qualified Trust Service Provider on the EU Trusted List, and a Bitcoin anchor through OpenTimestamps that depends on no company at all.
A chain of custody document
What was received, when, what was done to it and by whom, recorded step by step.
Verification anyone can run
Scripts and a short guide inside the package, plus the free Trust Verifier in the browser. Your lawyer, the other side's expert and the court can all check it without asking us anything.
"A qualified electronic time stamp shall enjoy the presumption of the accuracy of the date and the time it indicates and the integrity of the data to which the date and time are bound."
Article 41(2) of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014. That presumption is the reason the package carries a qualified timestamp rather than only a date we typed ourselves.
Pricing
One-time payment per item. No subscription. Delivery within 48 hours of receiving your files.
The family chat
One WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram conversation, with all its media
- Numbered transcript, every message in send order
- Photographs, documents and voice notes placed where they were sent
- Deleted messages and time anomalies disclosed with counts
- eIDAS qualified timestamp and Bitcoin anchor
The email thread
Correspondence with the notary, the solicitor or the executor
- Numbered transcript with the full header block for every message
- Every attachment extracted and hashed separately
- Your original message files preserved
- eIDAS qualified timestamp and Bitcoin anchor
A page or a video
A property listing, a registry page, an obituary, a video
- You send only the link, and we capture the page or the video for you
- Full page image, page source and the technical record of the visit
- eIDAS qualified timestamp and Bitcoin anchor
Documents, photographs, video or audio you already hold are sealed the same way, for $59.99 per package. Several items in the same matter? Write to us with a list of what you have and we will tell you what is worth sealing and what it will cost, before you pay anything. If we cannot process your files, we will help you produce usable ones, or we will issue a credit.
How long do I have before the evidence is gone?
Estate proceedings run for months or years, and that is the trap: the hearing feels far away while the evidence has a much shorter life. A relative can leave the group chat, close the account or hand the old phone in, and the conversation goes with it. Backups get overwritten. A property listing is taken down the week it sells. None of that waits for your case to mature.
The practical answer is that the export takes you a minute and the sealing takes 48 hours, so there is no version of this where waiting is the better plan. Seal the record at the point you realise there will be an argument, not at the point your lawyer asks for it. If the dispute later settles, you have spent $59.99 and lost nothing. If it does not, you have the one thing that cannot be recreated afterwards.
Is this instead of a solicitor, a notary or a forensic examiner?
No. It is the step that comes before all three, and it makes each of them cheaper.
| Option | What it does | Typical cost and time |
|---|---|---|
| A notary | Attests to what was done in their presence, which does not by itself fix the date of the underlying file | Varies by country, an appointment |
| A forensic examiner | Acquires the device or the mailbox and writes an expert report, the right answer when the device itself is in dispute | From several hundred dollars upwards, days to weeks |
| ProofSnap | Turns the files you already hold into a numbered transcript, seals them, and preserves the originals inside the package so an examiner can take over later without starting again | From $44.99, 48 hours |
Your solicitor is not on this list because nothing here replaces advice. What the package changes is what they receive: one citable document instead of a folder of images, which is usually the difference between an hour of their time and a day of it.
Frequently asked questions
Want to capture things yourself as the case goes on?
Estate matters run for months. If pages keep appearing that you need to preserve exactly as they are today, the ProofSnap extension for Chrome and Edge seals a web page in one click from your own browser, with the same hashes and signature, and a qualified timestamp on the plans that include eIDAS.