Hello everyone. It’s Chris, Pritt back again with a new topic in West Virginia divorce. Today, we’re going to be talking about whether you can change your will before being divorced and what the procedures are.
The answer to the first part of that question is yes at any point during your marriage, you can change your will, as long as certain basic requirements are met. So you can change your will at any point before getting divorced. It can be right at the beginning, during, or after. It is certainly important to go ahead and do that as soon as you possibly can. A lot of times people will do that after the divorce, but you certainly are not limited to that. One thing to note though is let’s say you’re going through a divorce and you die right in the middle, your spouse still may able to claim what’s known as an elective share.
An elective share is an interest that you have in a particular state. So even if a person is completely excluded from the person’s will, if they are the spouse based on certain measurements over time, they’re allowed to acquire more and more of that person’s estate. So that’s the reason it’s important when you’re going through a divorce to get a new will done because even if you have a will in place, the person can still go after your estate.
One of the important things that you have to remember though, is that if you’re going to be changing the will or revoking the will, the same formalities that are required for a will are required again to revoke it or to get a new will put in place. For example, some of those basic things that you need to have for any kind of will are a witness’s signature. Witnesses that meet certain threshold requirements signed in front of a notary.
Alternatively, you could have what’s known as a holographic will. A holographic will is a will that is completely and written out by hand. However, if you don’t have the basic requirements met, then the old will is still going to be put in place. So you need to always remember if you’re going to be changing your will make sure you do it right. Often it’s a good idea to have that done through an attorney’s office through it’s certainly not required.
That consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.
