Can a non beneficiary relative witness a will?

Mojisola

Panda78 wrote: »

Thanks Rob, OP here, i've continued to research this online and there are still conflicting reports, mostly on how you interpret "independent witness", but most of the obvious places to check - govt websites, CAB etc, seem to say anyone over 18 can witness, as long as they are not a beneficiary.

Or blind - because they have to be able to see the the testator writing their signature.

A will would still be valid if a beneficiary was one of the witnesses but he/she would not be given their inheritance.

whitewing

From what I read, if a beneficiary did witness the will properly, the will would still be valid but the beneficiary wouldn't be able to receive their inheritance.

It also seems that the witnesses may be contacted at a later date to confirm details of how the will was signed, if there is a query. So I was going to suggest that you simply get non-relatives to sign; however, maybe relatives are more sensible as you may be more likely to keep in touch in the long term.

madbadrob

Mojisola wrote: »

Or blind - because they have to be able to see the the testator writing their signature.

A will would still be valid if a beneficiary was one of the witnesses but he/she would not be given their inheritance.

You know I had not even considered a blind person and you are correct of course.

Yes that is true but would then cause a partial intestacy or even a total intestacy if the wife was witness and sole beneficiary which then puts pressures on the executors to locate the correct beneficiary. That would then bring up another argument. If the sole beneficiary was the spouse and a witness as well then the spouse would get the lot anyway because of the intestacy subject of course to the rules where value is in excess of £250k

Rob

cte1111

The probate office definitely do sometimes contact witnesses. It happened for my Granny's will - she made a small change with a codicil, which was witnessed correctly by my Dad's next door neighbours. When the will went to probate, one of the witnesses was asked to go to the probate office and confirm that he had signed it.

We were just glad that it was my parents' neighbours that had been the witnesses, as one still lived there 20 years later and was happy to go and do the necessary paperwork. If it had been one of my Granny's own neighbours, who lived 200 miles away and we wouldn't necessarily know how to get hold of, then it could have been tricky.

Not sure if this was just because it was a codicil, but I would always get a will re-written from scratch myself, just in case of problems like this.

getmore4less

madbadrob wrote: »

You know I had not even considered a blind person and you are correct of course.

Yes that is true but would then cause a partial intestacy or even a total intestacy if the wife was witness and sole beneficiary which then puts pressures on the executors to locate the correct beneficiary. That would then bring up another argument. If the sole beneficiary was the spouse and a witness as well then the spouse would get the lot anyway because of the intestacy subject of course to the rules where value is in excess of £250k

Rob

IS that really the case?

The will does not fail, just that the rules for distribution are prescribed by the rules of intestacy.

I think the wife above would still be an excluded beneficiary and potentially her issue etc. if she had died.

So anything to back this up one way or the other...

research starts

getmore4less

http://lawcommission.justice.gov.uk/docs/cp172_Forfeiture_Consultation.pdf

an interesting read but don't think it addresses the particular case it does discuss it partial in section 3.4

madbadrob

getmore4less wrote: »

IS that really the case?

The will does not fail, just that the rules for distribution are prescribed by the rules of intestacy.

I think the wife above would still be an excluded beneficiary and potentially her issue etc. if she had died.

So anything to back this up one way or the other...

research starts

If there was one beneficiary and that one person was the spouse of the deceased and she had witnessed the will then yes it would fail. The estate would then become what is known as Intestate with will. As the will would then follow the rules of intestacy the spouse should be first in line.

I did try to find a case like this but failed miserably but I would like a definitive answer myself. I suspect that as until fairly recently most if not all wills were written by solicitors that this may not have occurred.

Rob