Can I Revoke or Cancel a Will?

You may have worked tirelessly to put together your Last Will and Testament document. So with this, you may wonder why you would ever want to remove it from your estate plan. Well, believe it or not, our firm sees many clients who come in asking for help revoking or canceling their will documents. With that being said, please read on to discover how to legally revoke or cancel your will and how a seasoned Butler County will preparation attorney at Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC can guide you on if and when it is necessary to do so.

Under what circumstances might it be necessary to revoke or cancel my will?

At the time of drafting your Last Will and Testament document, you may have been meticulous with accounting for all your current assets and outstanding debts, all the loved ones deserving of an inheritance from you, and all other important external factors. Well, no matter how much thought and effort you put into this original document, your life circumstances may drastically change unexpectedly and beyond your reasonable control, for better or worse. Simply put, it might be necessary to revoke or cancel your will whenever you undergo a major life event or change, such as the following:

• You may have recently celebrated the birth of a new grandchild or other close relative in your family.
• You may have recently mourned the passing of your spouse or another close relative in your family.
• You may have recently inherited significant property or assets from your close relative who passed away.
• You may have recently received a serious health diagnosis associated with hefty medical expenses.
• You may have recently made a significant real estate transaction and own or rent a new property.

How can I legally revoke or cancel my will?

It is worth mentioning that you may simply make modifications to your existing Last Will and Testament document by making a codicil or a new personal property memorandum. But if you believe your life changes are significant enough to warrant a revocation or cancelation, you may then physically destroy the original will and all its copies. Yes, this is a quite literal approach, as we recommend you tear, shred, burn, cut, or otherwise obliterate these paper documents.

Most importantly, you must immediately follow the revocation or cancelation of your original will document with the creation of a new one. Within this new will document, you must explicitly provide a statement along the lines of, “I hereby revoke/cancel all prior wills, testaments, and codicils.” Please, we ask that you get started on this while you are still of sound mind, to ensure its permissibility in the Pennsylvania probate court.

Your will revocation or cancelation should not be done without the wise legal counsel of one of the competent Butler County estate planning & probate attorneys. So please call to schedule your initial consultation with us at Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC today.