Witness qualification?

securityguy

SevenOfNine wrote: »

I wonder if any witness has ever been called upon to confirm that they DID witness the signing? I suppose one would have to say they did but can't confirm the identity of the person signing that name, given that they didn't know them from Adam.

Anyone know?

A witness to a will is not signing to say that they know the person. They are simply signing to say that someone made this signature on this piece of paper. It's not like counter-signing a passport application. I suspect that someone who says "NHS staff can't sign as witnesses to wills" is confusing it with the removal of doctors from the list of approved counter-signers. Doctors are no longer able to sign passport applications for their patients, something that doctors asked for in order to stop the patients pressuring them (and because they often don't know who their patients are in sufficient detail).

candlelight_2013

Many, many years ago I was a shorthand typist for a firm of Solicitors, and we were very often asked to witness a will signing. I have even visited a client with my boss when the client was housebound to witness a will signing.

I have no idea if that is allowed now, but it was the norm then (1960s)

Candlelightx

Mojisola

candlelight_2013 wrote: »

Many, many years ago I was a shorthand typist for a firm of Solicitors, and we were very often asked to witness a will signing. I have even visited a client with my boss when the client was housebound to witness a will signing.

I have no idea if that is allowed now, but it was the norm then (1960s)

We recently updated our wills and the solicitor and his assistant witnessed our signatures so it's still done.

jackyann

Retired NHS staff here. Over the years, our management initially asked, then formally told us not to witness anything, sign passport applications etc. inour'work' capacity. It is not illegal for us to do so, although (depending on your exact contract) it may breach your terms of employment.
The reason is just that it can end up being time consuming - and if there are any 'problems' (and my goodness, don't we know from this forum how many there can be!) it all tends to be dealt with during work hours, and cause unnecessary grief. I imagine that care home providers feel the same.
That does not, of course, stop us doing any of those things in a private capacity, outside of work.

GPs are a slightly different matter in that they are self-employed practitioners, but most of their professional organisations now advise against signing such things, for similar reasons. A few, of the old school, usually in smaller, traditional practices still do.