Does a New Will Cancel an Old Will in the UK?

It's im­port­ant to clearly say in your new will that you want to cancel all pre­vi­ous wills to avoid any con­fu­sion. Oth­er­wise, your ex­ecut­ors may end up in a very tricky legal situ­ation after you’ve passed.

In this Aatos blog post, we'll ex­plore how cre­at­ing a new will in the UK can cancel an old one, the im­port­ance of draft­ing clear re­voc­a­tion clauses to avoid com­plic­a­tions, and what to do with your will when life changes occur.

Common Mis­take Easy to Avoid

The oc­cur­rence of mul­tiple Wills being dis­covered after a test­at­or's death is not un­com­mon.

Ac­cord­ing to data from The Na­tion­al Will Re­gister, ap­prox­im­ately 1 in 5 Will searches reveal an un­known or later Will that su­per­sedes an earli­er one.

This can happen when a person drafts mul­tiple Wills over their life­time without form­ally re­vok­ing pre­vi­ous ver­sions or in­form­ing ex­ecut­ors and be­ne­fi­ciar­ies of the most recent ver­sion.

These situ­ations can com­plic­ate the pro­bate pro­cess and some­times lead to dis­putes if dif­fer­ent Wills con­tain con­flict­ing pro­vi­sions.

Re­voc­a­tion by Sub­sequent Will

When draft­ing a new will, it has the power to revoke any pre­vi­ous wills you've cre­ated, but only if you ex­pressly state so in the new doc­u­ment.

Ideally you should use lan­guage like "this will re­vokes any pre­vi­ous wills or co­di­cils." This state­ment, known as a re­voc­a­tion clause, serves as a clear mes­sage that the new will su­per­sedes any prior ones.

However, com­plic­a­tions may arise if you pos­sess assets in mul­tiple coun­tries. For in­stance, if you create a new will that solely ad­dresses assets in the UK and in­cludes a clause re­vok­ing all pre­vi­ous wills, un­cer­tain­ties may arise re­gard­ing assets loc­ated in other coun­tries, for ex­ample if you own prop­erty in India.

In such cases, assets not ad­dressed in the new will, like those in India, may be sub­ject to local in­test­acy laws, which dic­tate the dis­tri­bu­tion of assets for in­di­vidu­als who pass away without a will.

💡 To safe­guard your entire estate, it's es­sen­tial to clearly spe­cify in your will the assets it per­tains to and their re­spect­ive loc­a­tions, par­tic­u­larly if you hold prop­er­ties or in­vest­ments across dif­fer­ent coun­tries.

Read more about dis­in­her­it­ance

Create and Update Your Will Easily at Aatos

Ex­cep­tions Where an Old Will Might Not Be Com­pletely Can­celled

Some­times, a new will does­n't com­pletely over­ride the old one. This can happen in cases of par­tial re­voc­a­tion, where the new will only changes cer­tain as­pects of the pre­vi­ous one without re­pla­cing it en­tirely.

For ex­ample, you might decide to update who in­her­its a spe­cif­ic item or amount of money but leave the rest of your earli­er will un­changed.

Ad­di­tion­ally, if your new will is vague or con­tains in­con­sist­en­cies, it might not fully cancel the pre­vi­ous ones. This can lead to con­fu­sion and po­ten­tial legal chal­lenges, so it’s im­port­ant to be as clear and spe­cif­ic as pos­sible.

Read more about Con­test­ing a Will

Legal Re­quire­ments for Valid Re­voc­a­tion

To prop­erly cancel an old will and ensure the new one is leg­ally re­cog­nised, sev­er­al re­quire­ments must be met:

1. Proper Wit­ness­ing: The new will must be signed in the pres­ence of at least two wit­nesses, who also need to sign the doc­u­ment them­selves. This helps verify the au­then­ti­city of the will and con­firms that you were not under any undue in­flu­ence or pres­sure when making it.
2. Ex­pli­cit Re­voc­a­tion Clause: As we dis­cussed, you’ll need a spe­cif­ic re­voc­a­tion clause in the new will so that it’s clear your old will should no longer be con­sidered.
3. Test­at­or’s Mental Ca­pa­city: It must be clear that you, as the test­at­or, fully un­der­stand the con­sequences of cre­at­ing a new will and re­vok­ing the old one. This means you need to be men­tally cap­able of making in­formed de­cisions re­gard­ing your estate.

When Cre­at­ing a New Will, Be Care­ful with These Fol­low­ing Cases

1. Cases of Par­tial Re­voc­a­tion: You might decide to update who in­her­its a spe­cif­ic item or amount of money but leave the rest of your earli­er Will un­changed.  
2. Pos­sess­ing Assets in Mul­tiple Coun­tries: If you create a new Will that solely ad­dresses assets in the UK and in­cludes a clause re­vok­ing all pre­vi­ous Wills, un­cer­tain­ties may arise re­gard­ing assets loc­ated in other coun­tries, such as prop­erty in India.
3. New Will is Vague or Con­tains In­con­sist­en­cies: The new Will might not fully cancel the pre­vi­ous ones. This can lead to con­fu­sion and po­ten­tial legal chal­lenges, so it’s im­port­ant to be as clear and spe­cif­ic as pos­sible.
4. Major Life Events: Get­ting mar­ried auto­mat­ic­ally re­vokes any pre­vi­ous Wills unless your Will ex­pli­citly states it was made in con­tem­pla­tion of that mar­riage.
5. Am­bigu­ous Re­voc­a­tion Clauses: If the re­voc­a­tion clause in the new Will is not clear or is poorly worded, it might not ef­fect­ively cancel the old Will, lead­ing to con­fu­sion and po­ten­tial legal dis­putes.
6. Fail­ure to Com­mu­nic­ate Changes: Not in­form­ing rel­ev­ant parties (ex­ecut­ors, be­ne­fi­ciar­ies, etc.) about the ex­ist­ence of a new Will can lead to com­plic­a­tions if the old Will ends up being acted upon in­stead.
7. Re­ten­tion of Copies of Old Wills: Keep­ing old copies of pre­vi­ous Wills without mark­ing them as void can create con­fu­sion, es­pe­cially if these copies are dis­covered after your death.
8. Mul­tiple Ex­ecut­ors Named: If dif­fer­ent ex­ecut­ors are named in the old and new Wills without clear re­voc­a­tion, it could result in con­flicts over who has the au­thor­ity to ad­min­is­ter the estate.
9. Chan­ging Legal Ad­visors: If dif­fer­ent so­li­cit­ors or legal ad­visors handle the draft­ing of the old and new Wills without proper com­mu­nic­a­tion, there might be gaps or over­laps that cause com­plic­a­tions.
10. Di­git­al Assets: Fail­ing to ac­count for di­git­al assets and online ac­counts in a new Will can lead to un­in­ten­ded dis­tri­bu­tions (i.e. the old Will's pro­vi­sions may be ap­plied to these assets, caus­ing com­plic­a­tions if they are not aligned).
11. Un­re­voked Joint Wills or Mutual Wills: If you have a Joint Will or a Mutual Will with a spouse or part­ner, cre­at­ing a new Will may not fully revoke the pre­vi­ous one without spe­cif­ic steps to ad­dress the joint or mutual nature.
12. In­form­al Wills or Holo­graph­ic Wills: If an in­form­al Will (hand­writ­ten and not wit­nessed) was cre­ated earli­er and not prop­erly re­voked, it could po­ten­tially be con­sidered valid and create con­flicts with the new formal Will.
13. Dis­in­her­it­ance Issues: If the new Will dis­in­her­its someone who was a be­ne­fi­ciary in the old Will without clear and spe­cif­ic reas­ons, it might lead to legal chal­lenges from the dis­in­her­ited party.

Impact of Life Changes on Will Valid­ity

Major life events like mar­riage and di­vorce can sig­ni­fic­antly affect the valid­ity of your ex­ist­ing will under UK law.

For in­stance, get­ting mar­ried auto­mat­ic­ally re­vokes any pre­vi­ous wills, unless your will ex­pli­citly states it was made in con­tem­pla­tion of that mar­riage.

Di­vorce does­n't revoke a will, nor does it mean your will from before you were mar­ried comes back into effect. Your cur­rent will re­mains valid, but for in­her­it­ance pur­poses, your ex-part­ner is treated as if they had died when your mar­riage (or civil part­ner­ship) was dis­solved.

Prop­erly Des­troy­ing Old Wills

When you update or re­place a writ­ten will, it’s im­port­ant to prop­erly des­troy the old one to avoid any con­fu­sion or legal dis­putes. The best way to do this is to phys­ic­ally des­troy the doc­u­ment to ensure it can't be used or presen­ted as a valid will.

You should ideally tear it up, burn it, or shred it. Having a wit­ness present during this pro­cess can help con­firm that the will was indeed des­troyed in­ten­tion­ally, provid­ing an extra layer of pro­tec­tion.

Can­cel­ling Out an Old Will

In con­clu­sion, un­der­stand­ing how a new will can­cels an old one is cru­cial for en­sur­ing your estate is man­aged ac­cord­ing to your most cur­rent wishes.

Re­mem­ber to in­clude a clear re­voc­a­tion clause in any new will, be aware of how life changes affect its valid­ity, and prop­erly des­troy out­dated wills.

Old Will or New Will: A Legal Pickle

Find­ing mul­tiple Wills often prompts a search through re­gistered Wills to verify the most recent and leg­ally valid ver­sion.

Ser­vices like Cer­tainty Will Search are com­monly used by ex­ecut­ors to ensure they have the latest Will, par­tic­u­larly be­cause the dis­cov­ery of an­oth­er Will can affect the dis­tri­bu­tion of the estate and lead to costly ad­just­ments if pro­bate has already begun.

Re­gis­ter­ing a Will or per­form­ing a thor­ough search at pro­bate can help mit­ig­ate these com­plic­a­tions, as it es­tab­lishes a record that cla­ri­fies the test­at­or’s last valid wishes.

For fur­ther in­sights, see re­sources like The Na­tion­al Will Re­gister and legal ad­visor­ies that cover the com­plex­it­ies of find­ing mul­tiple Wills during pro­bate.

Read more:

• Writ­ing a Will – 3-minute Guide
• What is a Simple Will?
• The Cost of Writ­ing a Last Will