A Legal MinuteMissing & changed wills
Why a Word Document Isn’t a Valid Will
The short answer
Families have brought in a laptop, Word document or PDF left by someone who died, and the firm has told them it isn't treated as a valid will. As the court's reasoning is described, someone wanting it as their will would have taken the formal steps; arguments that it shows intent haven't changed that.
From the full episode What Happens When A Will Is Missing (18:15).
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Transcript
In Arizona, unless it is printed, notarized, and witnessed, it's not a will. We have had that, too, where somebody has brought us a laptop of the person who passed and said, "Look, there's a will on here." That sucks. That is a grocery list at best.
The court needs it printed, notarized, witnessed in order to say that that's a valid will, because the argument that the court uses is, if they wanted that will, they would have taken the time to print it, have it notarized, and get it witnessed.
And so, we have run into that actually a little bit more recently, where somebody's brought us, you know, a Word document or a PDF, and unfortunately, we have to tell them that's just completely useless, unfortunately. You know, and people struggle with that. "Oh, it shows intent. It shows that." And it's like, it doesn't, because they didn't print it. They didn't notarize it. They didn't witness it. It was just something they were thinking about.
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