What you need to know about signing & witnessing your Will

There are a number of strict legal formalities that you must comply with in order for your Will to be valid, that includes homemade Wills.

We something as simple as how you and your witnesses sign your Will is extremely important and can directly impact the validity of your Will. Even if we haven’t written your Will, we want to give you some tips to avoid the most common mistakes we see.

1. Ensure you have two witnesses with you before you sign your Will as they will also need to sign the Will at the same time as you.
2. Sign your Will where indicated with your normal signature (you do not need to print your name after/under your signature)
3. Your signature must be witnessed by two independent witnesses, they could be neighbours or work colleagues. It is very important to point out that a beneficiary must never sign the Will as a witness and neither should a relative.  Your witnesses must be over the age of eighteen and must not be blind. A witness does not have to be a professional person and they are not required to have specialist qualifications.
4. The witnesses must sign underneath your signature, again with their normal signature. Each witness must then print their full name under their signature and their full address including postcode and also their occupation.
5. Then date the Will on the first page on the date you have actually signed the document.
6. Please do not make any handwritten amendments to the engrossed Will.
7. If you or a witnesses make an error when signing the document please do not use any correction fluid, you need to print out and sign a new copy.
8. Please do not attach anything to the original engrossed Will, this includes paperclips, staples and any covering letters or documents accompanying the Will. If the engrossed Will is marked in any way then it will need to be resigned.

If you would like to learn more about signing your Will while ensuring social distancing measures are upheld, please read this article. 

Our Wills team are happy to help witness your Will at our office. We have an enclosed glass porch at our head office in Mansfield that allows you, us and 1 other witness to safely witness each other signing and safely pass the documents to one another through a postal drop box.

If you are concerned that your current Will is out of date or that you feel it’s important to have one written for the first time, we are here to help you.  Our team will walk you through the process, costs involved and can send you all the documents you need to get started by email or post. 

Our highly experienced Wills & Estate Planning team can be contacted by phone on 01623468468 or by using the enquiry form below.