Useful thoughts on Wills (not from me!)

[anonymous-user]

This is from a well regarded Lincoln's Inn barrister -


http://equitysdarling.co.uk/2020/03/27/will-making...

[anonymous-user]

Twitter discussion of the blog post, featuring some other very pukka Chancery lawyers, here -

https://twitter.com/LottieJohn1/status/12435183877...

[Chrisgr31]

Breadvan72 said:

This is from a well regarded Lincoln's Inn barrister -


http://equitysdarling.co.uk/2020/03/27/will-making...

Looks like Carson v Dade could make for interesting reading! The will was correctly signed purely due to horses reading it appears

[anonymous-user]

Good thread!

https://twitter.com/BarbaraRich_law/status/1244207...

[julian64]

Does a will need to be dated to make it legal?

[anonymous-user]

That sounds distinctly like a non-hypothetical question. Therefore, look up the answer yourself, or hire a lawyer!

[Pro Bono]

julian64 said:

Does a will need to be dated to make it legal?

No.

It's an interesting discussion, but in practical terms it's extremely rare that a Will that appears to have been correctly executed - i.e. it bears the testator's signature and those of two witnesses - would ever be challenged anyway.

It would only happen if there was someone sufficiently aggrieved by the contents of the Will to make a formal challenge. This is very rare in itself, but even those Wills that are challenged are usually on the basis of incapacity or undue influence.

The chances of anyone challenging the execution of an apparently valid Will are minute unless they had some direct evidence that it hadn't been properly signed.

So even if Wills aren't properly witnessed in the present crisis nobody's ever likely to find out provided they look OK.

[julian64]

Pro Bono said:

julian64 said:

Does a will need to be dated to make it legal?

No.

It's an interesting discussion, but in practical terms it's extremely rare that a Will that appears to have been correctly executed - i.e. it bears the testator's signature and those of two witnesses - would ever be challenged anyway.

It would only happen if there was someone sufficiently aggrieved by the contents of the Will to make a formal challenge. This is very rare in itself, but even those Wills that are challenged are usually on the basis of incapacity or undue influence.

The chances of anyone challenging the execution of an apparently valid Will are minute unless they had some direct evidence that it hadn't been properly signed.

So even if Wills aren't properly witnessed in the present crisis nobody's ever likely to find out provided they look OK.

I only mention because it seemed like an omission from the initial link. I thought there would be a threshold for validity rather than than a sliding scale. Makes sense though.

[anonymous-user]

The link is not intended to be a comprehensive study of every aspect of Wills.


SRA FAQ - mainly about regulatory compliance matters for solicitors, BUT some useful info re execution of Wills.


https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/news/coronavirus-qa

[zzrman]

Pro Bono said:

No.

It's an interesting discussion, but in practical terms it's extremely rare that a Will that appears to have been correctly executed - i.e. it bears the testator's signature and those of two witnesses - would ever be challenged anyway.

It would only happen if there was someone sufficiently aggrieved by the contents of the Will to make a formal challenge. This is very rare in itself, but even those Wills that are challenged are usually on the basis of incapacity or undue influence.

The chances of anyone challenging the execution of an apparently valid Will are minute unless they had some direct evidence that it hadn't been properly signed.

So even if Wills aren't properly witnessed in the present crisis nobody's ever likely to find out provided they look OK.

No but the smart money says you should date the document on the date it is executed by the testator and witnessed - just in case when the testator does there are found to be two wills making different provision - you would like to know which was the newer will and therefore the one to which effect should be given.