Issues Caused by Drafting Your Own Will

A lot of individuals are swayed into drafting a will on their own.  However, there can be issues caused by drafting your own will. They may want to save money by not hiring an attorney. They might want to keep their privacy and believe the best way to do it is to draft their own will. The individual could purchase a DIY kit at an office supply store and think they are capable enough to draft a will.

Nonetheless, create one’s own will comes with al lot of possible problems that a lot of individuals have no knowledge of. They might suffer huge repercussions that they did not expect. Some of the possible problems impacted by drafting your own will comprise of:

Invalidating the Will

When someone that is not a lawyer creates a will, they may make one that isn’t going to be legally valid in the state in which it is probated. The testator, the individual creating the will, could fail to sign it. They may handwrite only specific parts of the will, possible invalidating the will completely. The individual could neglect to have witnesses as required by law. They might not have the will notarized when it is required to be. They might neglect to adhere certain formalities in regard to the will, like not declaring that it is their last will and testament.

Invalidating Provisions

If the testator fails to invalidate the entire will, they might invalidate specific provisions of it. For instance, if they sign at a specific part of the will and then possibly adds additional provisions at a later time, these added provisions might not be included in the will. This one of the issues caused by drafting your own will. If they had witnesses that stand to inherit through the will, they could invalidate the provisions in favor of their beneficiaries. They might try to make a modification to the will and might not adhere to formalities, thus negating the added provisions. Terminology might be so unclear that a court is unable reasonably understand it. A testator might attempt to disinherit their spouse or a child, in which might not be allowed in the jurisdiction, or which might require particular language in order to be valid in the state.

Forgetting Contingencies

An individual might designate one individual to inherit all their property. Instead, they might pass on a specific item or portion of their estate. In spite of that, if this individual passes away before the testator, there can be a significant portion of the estate that was not put into consideration. A testator might not think of these contingency provisions. A knowledgeable estate planning lawyer can include provisions in regard to contingencies.

Forgetting Property

A testator might neglect to include specific property. They might acquire additional property following the creating of the will and not have any provisions associated with it. They might have property in a different state and might fail to consider the ramifications of this. An attorney can take a catalog of all of the property and initiate a will that dictates the conditions of the allocation of the property. Another issues caused by drafting your own will. The will can also contain particular terminology that describes what is going to happen in the event that the testator passed on property to a beneficiary and that property wasn’t owned by the testator at the time of their passing.

Failing to Revoke Previous Wills

A formally prepared will usually dictates that it is going to revoke any prior wills or codicils. When a testator neglects to revoke any prior wills, there can be uncertainty about which will overrides the other. An estate planning attorney can make sure that it is clear that the present will is the valid one and should be adhered to.

Neglecting to Update the Will

An individual might draft a will under a set of certain cases and might neglect to update the will as time goes on. There are a multitude of different life events that might require an update in the will. For instance, the testator might get married or go through a divorce, and the will should reflect those changes. They might have even children.

Neglecting to Protect the Will

A testator might do everything the right way and draft a valid will. Despite that, they might neglect to keep their will in a safe place, or they might keep their will in a too safe of a place such as a safety deposit box that no one can get to following the testator’s passing. An estate planning attorney can guarantee that steps are taken to make sure that the executor has access to it and to probate it when they need to.

Source:

1. Problems Posed by Drafting Your Own Will. Hg.org. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2022, from https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/problems-posed-by-drafting-your-own-will-46327

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