Signing Your Will (England & Wales)

You could write the perfect Will and still end up with a document that counts for nothing if the signing is botched. Sound dramatic? It isn't. The requirements sit in the Wills Act 1837 (Section 9, if you're curious), and judges don't bend the rules for people who got close but not quite there.

Not much prep is needed, thankfully. Print everything single-sided. Keep the pages in order. Find a decent pen, blue or black ballpoint. Avoid anything that fades over time, bleeds through the paper, or can be erased. The signature needs to be legible twenty or thirty years from now.

You need exactly two witnesses. Both adults, both physically present in the room at the moment you sign. There's no flexibility on this. A single witness won't do, and neither will someone who steps out to answer the door and comes back afterwards.

Equally important is who you don't pick. Anyone named as a beneficiary in the Will is off limits, and so is the husband, wife, or civil partner of a beneficiary. The Will itself won't be invalidated if you break this rule, but the witness/beneficiary loses their gift entirely. Families have discovered this months after a funeral, by which point there's nothing to be done about it.

Mirror Wills deserve a particular warning here. If you and your partner leave everything to each other, that makes both of you beneficiaries in the other's Will. Witnessing each other's documents would strip you both of your inheritance. Ask a neighbour, a colleague from work, or a friend who isn't mentioned in either Will.

There's a specific order to follow. Miss a step and you hand ammunition to anyone who might want to challenge the document later.

Get yourself and both witnesses into one room. Everyone stays put until the whole thing is done. You sign first, on the line your Will provides for it. Some people initial every page as an extra precaution; it's not legally required but it doesn't hurt.

Then witness number one signs while you and witness number two watch. After that, witness number two signs while you and witness one are still watching. Three signatures, all done in plain sight of each other, nobody leaving the room between signatures.

Underneath each witness's signature, they write their full name in block capitals, their home address, and their occupation. Technically the Will is valid without those details, but your executors will be grateful for them when probate comes around. Tracing a witness based only on a squiggled signature with no address is an experience nobody enjoys.

Probate solicitors will tell you the same mistakes come up again and again.

The classic: signing the Will on your own and then asking two people to "add their signatures" a few days later. That's not witnessing. Witnessing means watching you sign. If they weren't in the room at that moment, their names on the paper carry no legal weight at all.

Next up: a beneficiary acting as witness. Often happens at kitchen table signings where the family gathers round and everyone chips in. The consequences don't surface until the Will goes through probate, months or years later, when the witness/beneficiary finds out they've forfeited their inheritance.

Witnesses signing on separate days is another trap. Both were there when you signed, but life got busy and the second witness came back the following Saturday. That gap, even if short, can be enough for a challenge.

Handwritten edits after the fact are surprisingly common and entirely useless. People cross out a name, squeeze in a replacement, attach a Post-it with updated instructions. None of it has any legal effect. If you need to alter anything after signing, you're looking at either a codicil (a formal, separately witnessed amendment) or a brand-new Will. Most people just write a fresh one.

One more thing: leave the physical pages alone after everyone has signed. Taking out a staple, replacing a page with a cleaner reprint, even shuffling the order of the sheets. The Probate Registry will treat any sign of tampering as suspicious, and a beneficiary with a good solicitor can use that suspicion to mount a formal challenge.

Only the signed original carries legal weight. A photocopy might be useful as a reference, but the Probate Registry won't accept one in place of the real thing.

Where you keep it matters. Somewhere dry, secure, and ideally fireproof. A fireproof box at home works. A bank safe deposit box is better. Leaving it with a solicitor is another option. Wherever you choose, make sure your executors know the exact location. A note tucked into your filing cabinet saying "Will stored at [place]" saves them turning the house upside down.

Review the document after any big life change. A new marriage automatically kills off every Will you previously held under English and Welsh law, so if you've married since making this Will, the clock is ticking on getting a replacement sorted. Divorce, a new baby, a property sale, a major inheritance, these all justify pulling the document out and reading it through again.

Our service produces your Will with a built-in attestation clause and clear signing instructions. From there, the signing steps above are all that stand between you and a fully legal Will. Anything unclear? Drop our support team a message and they'll talk you through it.