Will Execution, Formalities and Revocation: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
25 flashcard terms for Wills and Trusts Topic 2, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 15-question quiz — free, no account needed.
A will signed by the testator and witnessed according to statute, which is the standard formal instrument and the baseline against which all execution defects are measured.
Testamentary intent
The present intention that the document itself operate as a disposition of property at death, distinguished from a letter of instruction, a draft, or a mere statement of future plans.
Testamentary age requirement
The statutory minimum age, generally eighteen, that a testator must reach before executing a valid will, with narrow exceptions in some states for emancipated minors or members of the armed forces.
Signature requirement
The testator must sign, or have the will signed in the testator's name by another person acting in the testator's conscious presence and at the testator's direction, which authenticates the document.
Attestation requirement
Most statutes demand two competent witnesses who sign within a reasonable time after seeing the testator sign or after hearing the testator acknowledge the signature or the will itself.
Line of sight test
A strict presence standard satisfied only if the testator could have seen the witnesses sign from the testator's position, without changing location, whether or not the testator actually looked.
Conscious presence test
A more flexible standard under which presence exists if the testator comprehends through sight, hearing, or general awareness that the witnesses are in the act of signing the will.
Interested witness
A witness who is also a beneficiary. The Uniform Probate Code abolishes any penalty, while purging statutes in other states strip the excess benefit rather than void the entire will.
Purging statute
A rule that saves a will attested by a beneficiary but voids the gift to that witness, or reduces it to what the witness would have taken in intestacy, whichever amount is smaller.
Self-proving affidavit
A sworn statement by testator and witnesses before a notary, made at execution or later, that substitutes for live testimony and lets the will be admitted without calling the attesting witnesses.
Holographic will
An unwitnessed will valid in many states if the signature and the material portions are in the testator's own handwriting; the Uniform Probate Code allows extrinsic evidence to show testamentary intent.
Strict compliance
The traditional rule that any deviation from execution formalities invalidates the will, valued for predictability but criticized for defeating the intent of testators who nearly complied.
Substantial compliance
A judicial doctrine excusing an execution defect when the document nonetheless served the ritual, evidentiary, protective, and channeling functions that the formalities exist to perform.
Harmless error rule
The Uniform Probate Code reform that lets a court probate a defective document if clear and convincing evidence shows the decedent intended it to be a will or an alteration of one.
Ritual function
The purpose of formalities that impresses on the testator the seriousness of the act, guarding against casual or offhand statements being mistaken for a final disposition of property.
Evidentiary function
The purpose of formalities that supplies reliable proof of the testator's wishes at a time when the only person who truly knows the answer is unavailable to testify.
Notarized will
An instrument the Uniform Probate Code validates when acknowledged before a notary even without attesting witnesses, an innovation that most states have so far declined to adopt.
Revocation by subsequent instrument
Cancellation accomplished by a later will or codicil that either expressly revokes the earlier document or disposes of the estate in a way wholly inconsistent with the earlier plan.
Revocation by physical act
Cancellation by burning, tearing, obliterating, or destroying the will with simultaneous intent to revoke, performed by the testator or by another in the testator's conscious presence and at the testator's direction.
Partial revocation by act
The crossing out of a single gift, permitted by the Uniform Probate Code but rejected in states that fear an unwitnessed change effectively makes a new and unattested disposition of property.
Presumption of revocation
The inference that a testator destroyed a will when the original was last known to be in the testator's possession and cannot be found, or is found mutilated, after death.
Lost will proof
The showing needed to probate a will whose original is missing, typically due execution, contents proved by a copy or credible testimony, and rebuttal of the presumption of destruction.
Dependent relative revocation
An equitable doctrine that disregards a revocation made under a mistaken assumption of law or fact when the testator would clearly have preferred the revoked will to the resulting alternative.
Revival
The restoration of a previously revoked will, which under the Uniform Probate Code depends on the testator's intent shown by circumstances or contemporaneous statements rather than on automatic operation.
Revocation by operation of law
Automatic partial revocation triggered by changed circumstances, most commonly divorce, which voids provisions in favor of the former spouse and that spouse's relatives under the Code.