Published on: 13th July 2020

Who can witness your Will?

Why does a Will need to be witnessed?

Witnessing a Will is an extremely important job. Having two witnesses for your Will signing is necessary for the Will to become official and legally binding. Failure to do this could mean that should the validity of your Will become questionable in the future, you would not have witnesses to testify that they witnessed you signing the Will.

Who can you choose to witness your Will?

You must choose two people to witness your Will, and it is most important that they are both present with you when you sign. There are minimum criteria, and to witness a Will you should be:

• Over 18 years of age
• Not related by blood or marriage to anyone mentioned in the Will
• Mentally able
• Not the beneficiary of the Will

You therefore need to choose two people who are independent from you to witness your Will. They can be related to each other. Typically, this may be a friend, neighbour or work colleague. In some cases, we would recommend asking a GP to witness a Will if there are any considerations with the estate owner being either elderly or with mental capacity that could be questioned. However, it is not uncommon for a GP to charge a fee for this.

That all sounds relatively simple, and in reality, it is – if you are sensible about it then finding two responsible people to witness your Will is not a difficult task. There is, however, a typical scenario we see on a reasonably regular basis and want to talk you through which is at least worthy of consideration and useful to know!

• Mr and Mrs Smith are married with two children. They leave their estate to their children.
• Mr and Mrs Smith have their Wills created by Casey & Associates.
• When it comes to having their Wills witnessed, Mr and Mrs Smith decide to ask their daughter’s boyfriend Jonny to witness their Will.
• Jonny witnesses their Will.
• Later that year Jonny proposes and then marries Mr and Mrs Smith’s daughter.

In this scenario the Will is not invalidated because, although Jonny is now related to Mr and Mrs Smith’s daughter by marriage, at the date of attestation (signing of the Will) he was not.

If, however, Jonny was married to Mr and Mrs Smith’s daughter at the date of attestation (signing of the Will), then he would disinherit Mr and Mrs Smith’s daughter.

Here at Casey & Associates, we work very closely with our Clients and want to give them as many options as we can for their Wills to ensure they are witnessed correctly. When it comes to witnessing your Will, we can:

• Arrange for you to visit our offices and two members of Casey & Associates can act as your witnesses.
• Check that the signing was carried out correctly if you have arranged for your own signing.

So, although not complicated, getting a Will witnessed correctly is important in ensuring the validity of the document. Make sure you get your Will witnessed correctly, and if you are not sure then ask us and we will be happy to help. A mistake here that results in an invalidated Will could unfortunately only be discovered when it was too late.

When your Will has been witnessed and is a legally binding document, safe storage of this document is a must. You can find out more information about the secure Will storage service we offer by clicking here.

If you would like any more information about witnessing your Will, then get in touch with us and we can arrange for one of our Consultants to discuss options with you and advise as appropriate. Please call 01732 868190 and one of our friendly team will be able to advise or visit the contact page of our website to get in touch.

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Casey & Associates has adapted its operations in the light of the current COVID – 19 situation.

We are currently offering video and telephone appointments.
Furthermore, we are offering evening and weekend video and telephone appointments for NHS staff and key workers.

All our administration systems are fully operational with some colleagues working from home.

If you need to contact us please consider using the contact page on our website which is here or telephone 01732 868190

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