The 3 mistakes that make a homemade will invalid

Three small mistakes — any one of them can quietly cancel a homemade will. All three are invisible while you are alive: the document sits in the drawer looking perfect, and the failure is only discovered at death, when there are no do-overs. Count them with me.

Mistake one: the witnessing ceremony done wrong

The law requires both witnesses to be present together, at the same time, when you sign or acknowledge your signature — and then each signs in your presence. It is a ceremony, not a paper round.

• One witness on Tuesday, the other on Thursday — void.
• Signed alone, then posted to a witness to add their signature — void.
• Witnessed through a window with the document passed round — risky at best.

A void will means intestacy: the estate is distributed by the default rules as if the will never existed.

Mistake two: the wrong witnesses

If a beneficiary — or a beneficiary's spouse or civil partner — witnesses the will, the result is subtler and crueller: the will itself stands, but that person's gift is void. They watch everyone else inherit. Families reaching for the nearest two adults usually reach for exactly the people named in the will.

Mistake three: changing it afterwards

A will is not a shopping list. Crossings-out, a paragraph squeezed in, a page swapped after signing — unattested alterations are presumed to have been made after execution and are ignored, or worse, cast doubt on the whole document. Even removing and re-inserting a staple can raise suspicions of tampering that have to be answered before probate is granted.

The rule is simple: to change a will, you make a new will (or a properly executed codicil). Never annotate the original.

The bonus killer: the will nobody can find

A perfectly valid will that never surfaces is, in practice, no will at all — intestacy by misplacement. Where the original is stored, and who knows where, matters as much as what it says.