Can you handwrite your Will yourself?

Yes you can handwrite your Will but it needs comply with the Wills Act of 1837 in order for the Will to be valid. If your handwritten Will, known as a Holographic Will, fails to meet these legal requirements, it will be invalid. Either an old Will you had previously prepared (and wanted to change), or the Intestacy provisions as set out in law, will distribute your estate to beneficiaries you had probably not wanted to benefit.

Photo by Ivan Samkov from Pexels

For those familiar with finding distant relatives who might be abroad, the prospect of the looming spectre of the Intestacy provisions will cause difficulties.

Even if your handwritten Will is legally valid, is it clear enough to be understood and what happens if, like Veljko Aleksic, your handwritten Will was ambiguous in its gifting and not clear enough to know what he intended to do with his £2m+ estate?

In this case the Court can get involved and, sometimes, sort it out. But it’s sensible to consider the costs involved in terms of legal and court fees. Not to mention the delay. It took 3 years to resolve Aleksic’s estate. You’ll need to weigh up the risks involved in writing your own Will, compared to getting a Will drawn up by a professional and all the underlying advice too.

Case Study

Veljko Aleksic was originally from Montenegro. Although he lived in England for decades, and became a British citizen, he never became grammatically fluent in the written language. He had no direct descendants.

Aleksic handwrote his own Will dealing with his £2m+ estate, at an unknown time in 2012, and in a highly informal style. Fortunately, it was at least signed by him and witnessed by 2 people but it did not comply with other formalities.

No one was specifically named as an Executor, the Probate Registry did not like the term describing someone to be “in charge” and so there was no one entitled to apply for Grant of Probate. Letters of Administration were eventually obtained after a friend and 2 solicitors, one of whom was a Serbian speaker, got involved and once extra evidence was obtained from the witnesses.

Much of the wording was not clear – notably, it left most of his £2m estate to the Serbian Orthodox Church without specifying which of the several churches he meant.

One cash legacy of £10,000 was left to ‘Brit. Cancer Research’ but there is no such organisation.

Another cash legacy went to someone, but the words immediately following the name, containing the amount to be given, had been obliterated. Then, after what was obviously a telephone number, the words ‘£2.000. Two’ appear.

Other passages only added to the confusion.

The cancer charity legacy was resolved but it required an application to the Attorney General’s Office for the bequest to be disposed of by Her Majesty under the Royal Sign Manual, dividing the legacy between a number of named British cancer research charities.

For the other irregularities, the administrators had to go to court for guidance.

Luckily for everyone, the Judge took a pragmatic approach. Aleksic’s poor English, he said, complicated the task of ascertaining his intention – but did not alter it. ‘Bad English can still make a good will, as long as the testator’s meaning can be understood’, he said. ‘Despite the difficulties, most of what the will provides is clear.’ Using various other documents, and consulting the extensive legal literature on irregular wills, as well as Montenegrin law, he was able to determine the distribution of the estate without resorting to any partial intestacy.

For advice in relation to writing a Will, contact our expert Team on 01908 660966 / 01604 828282 or email Wills@franklins-sols.co.uk.