Will revision

[holly888]

My will was so arranged that on my death, the estate would be equally divided between my son & daughter. When my son was going through a lengthy divorce process, I was concerned that had I passed on during this period, his wife could claim a share of his inheritance. To prevent this, I temporarily disinherited my son so that the whole estate would pass to by daughter and a will was drawn up to this effect.
Now that the divorce has been settled, I wish to revert to the conditions laid out in the previous will, a copy of which I still have. To avoid the expense of yet another will, could I not just destroy the last will?. The solicitor who drew up both wills, will of course have copies. Any advice would be much appreciated.

[bednobs]

tbh i'm not sure. I thought wills usually started with a line about revoking any previous wills, and technically, the previous one has already been revoked. However, i'm not sure who would know if you just destroyed the newest one and went back tot he old one

[cathfromsaron]

take both to a solicitor and check ... they may say yay or nay but it will still be cheaper if you have the exact wording you want!

[factor-fiction]

If you do as you suggest the only problem I can foresee would be if someone produced a copy of your later will. Is there a chance a solicitor or someone may hold a copy?

[237SJ]

I`m not sure either but the wording of the will says, "This is the last will and testament." If it`s the previous one then that statement would be untrue. If it was me, I would get one of those Lawpack Will packs from Staples and copy the wording of the first will.

[cathfromsaron]

BTW solicitors make more money from those packs and intestate people that from will writing!

i would defo see a solicitor and have a new will (or the copy of the old wording) properly witnessed, dated and recorded!

[holly888]

Thank you all for your helpful advice

[Postdog]

Being in a similar situation in that I changed my will and now want the original back again, I have advised the solicitor to do this. A copy of the will is registered somewhere and I suspect that if the amended will is registered it will over ride just destroying a copy of it in your possession. Best to be safe than sorry I reckon.

[Barmaid]

No! If you destroy the last Will, it is revoked. That doesn't mean that you revert to the previous Will because that would need to be expressly unrevoked (or revived is the better word). If you just did that you would die intestate.

You CAN revive a revoked Will but at the same time you must also revoke the second Will.

A revoked Will can be revived by re-execution (this won't solve the problem of revoking the second Will). The second way of doing it is to make a codicil which EXPRESSLY revokes the second Will and revives the first Will. Personally, I would just make a new one since this area is one that has "cock up" written all over it.

[holly888]

Thank you Barmaid

[spotit3]

Easiest and cheapest way is just to copy the original word for word, with new date, obviously, get it signed and witnessed and a any previous wills will then be revoked.