Is My Will Still Valid? What Marriage, Divorce and Time Do to an Old Will

There is no expiry date on a will in England and Wales. A will written decades ago can still be perfectly valid today. But certain life events quietly change, or completely cancel, an existing will without anyone having to do anything. If you are relying on an old will, or an executor has found one among a deceased person’s papers, it is worth checking these points before assuming it governs the estate.

Marriage revokes an earlier will

As a general rule, getting married automatically revokes any will made before the marriage, unless the will was made specifically in contemplation of that marriage and says so expressly. This catches out a surprising number of people who wrote a will years before meeting their spouse and never thought to update it. If no new will was made after the wedding, the intestacy rules apply on death, regardless of what the old will said.

Divorce does not cancel a will, but it changes it

Divorce works differently. It does not revoke the whole will. Instead, from the date the decree absolute or final order is made, the will is read as if the former spouse had died on that date. Any gift to them lapses, and if they were named as executor, that appointment falls away too. The rest of the will remains valid and takes effect as written. This is a common source of confusion, since people often assume a divorce wipes the will clean when it actually leaves most of it standing.

A later will normally supersedes an earlier one

Where more than one will is found, the general position is that the most recent validly executed will governs, particularly where it contains a standard revocation clause cancelling all previous wills. Problems arise where two wills cover different assets, where dates are missing or unclear, or where a later document only partially revokes an earlier one. In those situations, working out which provisions actually apply needs careful reading of both documents side by side.

What actually makes a will valid

Separately from any of the above, a will only takes effect if it met the formal requirements when it was signed. In England and Wales that means it must be in writing, signed by the person making it (or by someone else in their presence and at their direction), and that signature must be made or acknowledged in the presence of two witnesses who are both present at the same time and who then sign it themselves. A will that is unsigned, witnessed by only one person, or witnessed by someone who was also left a gift under it, can run into serious problems.

What to do if you are not sure

If a will is more than a few years old, or was made before a marriage, divorce, or significant change in family circumstances, it is worth having it reviewed before relying on it. This applies just as much to someone still living who wants to check their own affairs are in order, as it does to an executor who has found a will after a death and is not sure whether it is the operative document.

For the specific grounds on which a will itself can be challenged, rather than simply superseded, see our guide to the five legal grounds for contesting a will. If it turns out there is no valid will at all, our guide to who inherits when there is no will explains how the estate is distributed instead.

GOV.UK sets out the basic rules on writing and updating a will, and the Law Society’s guidance on making a will covers when it is worth taking legal advice rather than relying on an old document.