Validity of will with one witness

Hello. I am Gemma, your legal assistant here at Lawyer Destroyer. I would be very happy to look into this for you.

The short answer:

In England and Wales, a will that has only been witnessed by one person is almost certainly invalid. The law is very strict on how a will must be signed and witnessed in order to prevent fraud and protect people's true wishes.

The legal position:

Under the Wills Act 1837, for a standard will to be legally binding, the person making it must sign it in the physical presence of two independent witnesses. Crucially, both witnesses must be together in the room at the exact same time when the document is signed. After the person making the will signs it, both witnesses must then add their own signatures.

If only one person witnessed the signature, the legal requirements have not been met, and the document will not be recognised as a valid will.

There is a very rare exception in law known as a privileged will. This applies only to soldiers on active military service or sailors at sea, who can sometimes make a valid informal will without two witnesses. Aside from this specific and unusual situation, two witnesses are always required.

What happens if a will is invalid:

If a will is invalid because of a witnessing mistake, the law treats it as if that specific document never existed. This means one of two things will happen.

If the person made an older will that was signed and witnessed correctly, that older will takes effect instead.

If there is no older valid will, the person's estate and belongings will be divided according to the standard rules of intestacy. Intestacy is a set of automatic legal rules detailing exactly which family members inherit, regardless of what the invalid will said.

Practical next steps:

What you should do next depends entirely on whether the person who made the will is still with us.

1. If the person making the will is still alive and has mental capacity, the easiest fix is simply to draw up a fresh copy of the will and sign it again. This time, you just need to make sure two independent witnesses are present at the same time to watch the signature and sign it themselves.

2. If the person has sadly passed away, you will need to start by looking closely for any previous valid wills they might have made, perhaps held in safe storage by a local solicitor or a bank.

3. If there are definitely no previous valid wills, you will need to look up the government rules of intestacy to see who is legally entitled to manage the estate and who will inherit the property and money.

4. If the invalid will causes a problem, for example by failing to leave money to someone the deceased clearly wanted to provide for, the family might be able to agree to rearrange things using a document called a deed of variation. This allows the people who inherit under the strict intestacy rules to redirect their inheritance to whoever the deceased actually intended to benefit. However, all the family members giving up their share must agree to this in writing.

Missing information:

Knowing whether the person who wrote the will is still living would help narrow down your exact practical options. It is also always worth checking the original document itself just to be absolutely certain there isn't a second witness signature tucked away on the back page.

Please do let me know if you need help understanding the rules of intestacy or how a deed of variation might work in practice.