When DIY wills
go wrong.

A man we'll call David lived with his partner Jane for twenty-three years. They owned no property jointly. They were not married. They had no civil partnership. They were a family in every sense but the legal one — and David never wrote a will because he assumed she'd be looked after.

When David died unexpectedly, the intestacy rules treated him as if Jane did not exist. His estate passed to his estranged adult children from a previous marriage. Jane was forced to bring a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, which took two years and cost her £40,000 in legal fees to receive a portion of what David always meant her to have.

Cohabitees in England & Wales have zero automatic inheritance rights. None. The popular myth of "common law marriage" is not law — it has never been law.

Section 15 of the Wills Act 1837 is unforgiving: if a witness (or their spouse) is also a beneficiary, the gift to that beneficiary is void. The Will itself can stand — but everything left to the witness-beneficiary vanishes, and the residue passes under the intestacy rules.

A common DIY mistake: the testator asks the two people who'll be most affected — say, the daughter who'll inherit the house, and the son-in-law — to witness. The Will is perfectly drafted. The signatures are perfect. The result: daughter inherits nothing.

Equally common: one witness watches the testator sign, the second witnesses only the first witness's signature, not the testator's. Wills Act 1837 s.9 requires both witnesses to be present at the same time. Get it wrong and the entire Will is invalid.

Under section 18 of the Wills Act 1837, marriage automatically revokes any prior Will — unless the Will is expressed to be made "in contemplation of" that specific marriage. Most DIY wills don't include the contemplation-of-marriage clause because the templates online are decades old.

Real outcome we see every year: someone writes a will leaving everything to their partner, then gets married, dies a year later. The intestacy rules apply because the marriage revoked the will. The estate splits between the new spouse and any children — often in ways the deceased would never have wanted.

Civil partnership has the same revocation effect. Divorce, by contrast, doesn't revoke a Will — it just treats the ex-spouse as having predeceased.

When a will contains a clause that more than one person could reasonably claim, the court must construe it. Construction summons in the Chancery Division are slow, expensive, and the entire estate funds the legal fees — meaning the family inherits less, regardless of how the case lands.

DIY templates from the 1990s frequently say "my eldest son" without naming him, or refer to "the family home" when the testator owned several properties. We've seen "my dear friend Mark" — and the deceased had two friends called Mark.

Even apparently clear language can fail. "My nephew" can be read as nephew by blood or by marriage. "My grandchildren" — does that include stepchildren, adopted children, those born after the will was signed?

A Will without a named executor is not invalid — but it forces the family to apply for letters of administration with will annexed, which is slower and more expensive than a grant of probate, and the court appoints the administrator (usually the residuary beneficiary, sometimes a creditor).

More common: an executor named, but no substitute. The named executor dies first, or refuses to act. The family is back in the queue at the Probate Registry.

Worst case: the named executor turns out to be a beneficiary's ex-spouse, an estranged relative, or a person who has lost capacity. There's no power to override the will's choice without a court order.