Validity of a Will

[Abney]

Can anyone shed any light as to whether a printed will that is across 3 pages with only the 3rd page being the signatories and witnesses would be valid? It seems to me that anyone can sign and witness the 3rd page with the option of swapping the first 2 pages at a later date. It seems a little strange to me.

You want to speak to @mumblechum1. Hopefully she'll see she's wanted here!

I know when I was a legal secretary you couldn't have a contract where the last page only contained signatories. As you say, anything could be replaced on subsequent pages.

Also if the will names the wife as first executor/trustee but on the event of her death gives the names of 2 other people and all 3 have unfortunately died plus one of the witnesses how stable is the will?

I must admit, that's something I wondered re witnesses passing away and validity

That's why you're supposed to update your Will if your partner dies. Is this something that's happening to you, OP?

Thank you imperial. I did see mumblechum helping someone on an older thread. Mumblechum help!!!

I have put it on another thread but in short my 2 half brothers from my dads second marriage have supposedly inherited everything. The will was written in 2004 and my half brothers was 16 and 18 at the time. My dads second wife was an achoholic and was due to have a liver transplant at the age of 40 we think shortly after the will was written. She was always very forceful that everything would go to her 2 sons and the inheritance left by my mum would go to the 5 children in his first marriage. My dad exchanged contracts on his house but sadly died a couple of days later. The house has now completed. My half brothers cleared the house and either threw items out or took them to the charity shop. It was like watching bargain hunters in a January sale. I forced myself to go down to my dads house whilst they were clearing it 2 days after my dad died but I couldn't stay as was so upset to see what his final moments had been ie cups of tea, etc, so I went down again the next day and more or less positioned myself at the door so that I could stop things being chucked away. I was taking the most trivial stuff because I knew that everything was going to be thrown. The boys are now grown men 28 and 30, therefore, my dads views had changed. He thought that they were lazy and he often moaned that they did not lift a finger to help him and he said he did not want one of the sons to get anything only this summer. He basically wanted to get the money out of the house buy a smaller place and start enjoying his life. We was told he wrote further wills but only the one from 2004 has been found. My dads 2nd wife died 4 years ago. Unfortunately my dad did not think he had left a will as he could not find his or his 2nd wifes. We believe his second wife hid them with her mother for safekeeping and left my dad to think that they had been lost.

Hi OP, as a matter of good practice, the signature page shouldn't be the only thing on the last page; I format my wills by making sure that at least one line from the last para is above the attestation clause by altering line spactngs or whatever.

Looking at the situation described in your post, it would be worthwhile doing a search of the probate office's storage facility www.gov.uk/search-will-probate as well as the National Will Register www.nationalwillregister.co.uk/

Who told you he wrote further wills? Is there any evidence at all of these ( eg mentioned in a letter/ email/ discussion of it with a third party)?
You could contact the people who made the first will to see if they know anything about a subsequent will, and the solicitors who acted for him on his house sale, they may have discussed it with him ( in fact its likely that they did).
Normally when you make a new will the old one is destroyed.
I would definitely query the will you mention if it was not bound and signed/ initialled on each page.

Hi Mumblechum. Thanks for joining. My dad wouldn't have paid for a solicitor so we believe the only wills would be home made wills. The only thing on the same page is a one liner about his funeral arrangements. what does residual estate mean if nothing specific has been given like a house, etc. Does it mean entire estate?

So difficult - I'm sorry to hear your situation

Are wills still valid if the witnesses have died?

Thanks Delphi. My dads girlfriend of a few years (another long story) sid within an hour of my dads death at the hospital that there was another will but that it was not signed and then she trailed off her sentence. My sister heard it and so did my sisters husband. The next morning she asked us if we were going to contest the will because it had all been left to the boys. Her own children are contesting their late fathers will as he did not have a chance to change the will after she left him for my dad (another long story) but when she asked us about contesting my dads will I just put it down to her own experience, She then asked the boys whether they had found the will and they said no we have only found 3 unsigned wills. Also my dads best friend had a conversation with my dad a couple of months before he died and my dad said that he would just leave a will and not sign it not knowing that there was this other will that may have been hidden at his mother in laws house.

The weird thing is that we was all friends at the funeral. I did ask to see copies of the wills in order to resolve all of the conspiracy theories and I was told that it was not really anyones business apart from the 2 beneficiaries ie my 2 half brothers even though all 5 childrens names from my dads first marriage i.e. my brothers and sisters who share the same mum and dad was in the will. Since then they have all gone to ground. My dads girlfriend and my half brother. My half brother defriended my sisters husband who had been really nice to my half brother simply because he asked for some planes as a momento something that we had been chasing up until the sale of the house.

If someone's name is in the will albeit they are the 3rd in line to the inheritance after everyone else has died doesn't that make them a beneficiary? It is like telling Princess Beatrice that she is not in line for the throne so it is none of her business unless everyone before her dies and then surprise, surprise your now the Queen.

You're not a beneficiary then unless someone else has died, though.

Residual estate means: The property that remains in a deceased person's estate after all specific gifts are made, and all debts, taxes, administrative fees, probate costs, and court costs are paid.