1. WILL EXECUTION CHECKLIST
(This document is meant to serve as a guide only. Each step may not apply to every case. The checklist is meant to be over-inclusive.)
Advocacy Tip
If your law office handles a significant number of wills, it is advisable to standardize the will execution ceremonies in your office and to conform them with the standards and applicable law in your jurisdiction. The following is an informal list which we have found helpful in our D.C. legal services office.
WILL EXECUTION CHECKLIST
Determine testamentary capacity by reviewing the Will with client.
Note: Adjudication of incompetency does not show lack of testamentary capacity. Eccentricity, memory lapses or delusions are inmaterial unless they affect the terms of the Will.* Testamentary capacity is established by a general understanding of the following:
Q. “Do you understand that after your death this document will control distribution of everything you own that does not require a beneficiary designation?”
Q. Review the specific property detailed in the Will.
Q. Please state the names of your closest relatives. State the names and your relationship to those people who will inherit from you under this Will. (natural objects of testator’s bounty and testator’s relation to them)
Q. “Is this want you want?”
Bring in the witnesses (over 18 years old and not beneficiaries).
Announce, “We are witnessing the Last Will and Testament of ______.”
Ask witnesses to identify themselves. It is helpful to initiate some casual conversation.
Ask your client the following in presence of witnesses:
Q. Have you read the Will?
Q. Do you understand it?
Q. Do you consider this your Last Will and Testament?
Q. Do you wish these people to witness your signing of the Will?
Watch the client initial each page.
Have the client sign the Will in the witnesses’ presence, and date it.
Read the attestation clause.
The client should ask each witness to sign. Have each witness sign in the presence of the client and the other witnesses.
Conform a copy. Don’t photocopy. A conformed copy is copy of an original document, except the signatures are printed or typed, rather than signed by hand.
Discuss a safe place to keep the Will with the client. The Personal Representative should know where it is kept.
Advise the client that he/she can change the Will in the future and that changes should be made formally and with legal assistance.
If a prior Will exists, the client should destroy it by tearing it up.
* Unlike most states, D.C. requires that the testator be capable of executing a contract or deed.