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When you draw up a will as part of your estate planning, there may come a time when you quite naturally want to change it. Other times, a person may want to revoke his will or it may be contested.
- Changing your will
- Revoking your will
- Will "contests"
- Can somebody be too old to make a will?
- What is "undue influence"?
- Is a "no-contest" clause enforceable?
Changing your will
"I have a will and want to change it. What should I do?"
You basically have two choices. One, you can draft a new will, expressly revoking your prior will. Or two, you can draft a "codicil" to your will.
A codicil is a supplement or addendum to your will that adds or deletes provisions or otherwise changes your will. It is subject to the same formal requirements as a will. In reality, a codicil is merely a later will that does not wholly revoke the previous one. There can be as many codicils to a will as you like, each either superseding prior codicils or leaving them intact and further supplementing the will.
One thing that you should not do is to make changes by crossing out parts of your will and adding in words or changing amounts or the names of beneficiaries. These changes will probably not work and will lead to confusion as to your real wishes. You will only be inviting someone to challenge your will (in a "will contest") by making these kinds of changes on the face of the will.
Revoking your will
"When I executed my will, I left the original with my lawyer and took an unsigned copy with me. I now want to revoke my will, but I do not want to draft a new will right now. I want to think things over for a while, but I know I don't want my old will to stand. What should I do?"
You should retrieve your will from you attorney and then revoke it by a physical act such as tearing, burning, mutilating or canceling. If possible, do this in the presence of witnesses and tell them that you are revoking your will.
Each state has rules regarding which acts will accomplish a revocation, so you might want to check with your attorney when you call on him for the will. Don't call your attorney on the phone and ask him to simply destroy the will. To properly revoke a will by physical act, you must perform the act or have it performed by someone at your direction and in your presence.
In some states that permit handwritten wills, you can revoke your will by writing a statement declaring that you are revoking your prior will and then signing the statement. But as this will work in only some states that permit holographic wills, you are better off revoking by physical act if you are not ready to draft a new will.
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