Can an Executor Be a Witness to a Will?

You may assume that making your Last Will and Testament document is a deeply personal task. However, you may not go through this process entirely alone. For one, you may need an attorney to offer you legal guidance throughout the entire process. Then, you should ask your loved one’s permission to list them as your will’s executor. Lastly, you must ask others to bear witness to the signing of your will document. With all these things considered, read on to discover whether your named executor can also serve as a witness at your will signing and how a seasoned Butler County will preparation attorney at Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC can help you navigate these estate planning laws and requirements accordingly.

What are the requirements for witnesses and an executor of a will?

First of all, you must understand the legal criteria individuals must meet to serve as witnesses to your Last Will and Testament signing. Generally speaking, it is recommended to have at least two witnesses present when you sign or acknowledge your signature at the bottom of your will document. Then, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania holds that these two individuals must be legal adults (i.e., at least 18 years old) and have the mental capacity to understand the event they are witnessing.

Similarly, the executor of your will must be 18 years old or older and considered to be mentally capable of taking on this serious responsibility. But in addition, they must be deemed legally qualified per Pennsylvania law and parameters. That is, they must not have a history of felony convictions or anything else in their past that would make the Pennsylvania probate court deem them as unsuitable. Also, the court has the right to strip them of this title at any point if it believes them to be actively participating in any misconduct.

Can an executor also be qualified to serve as a witness to a will?

Understandably, you may want to keep your will document and overall estate plan as private as possible. And so, in an effort to limit the number of parties you share your plans with, you may want your executor to double up as one of your witnesses. Well, you may be happy to hear that your executor can also be your witness, so long as you did not also designate them as a beneficiary of your will. This is because your witnesses must be disinterested parties that do not hold a financial stake in the will’s execution.

When a witness later on becomes a beneficiary, your other beneficiaries may feel inclined to step forward and contest your will’s validity. Specifically, they may claim a conflict of interest and go as far as to accuse your witness/beneficiary of coercing you into enacting certain terms and conditions in this legal document. If the Pennsylvania probate court concurs on this stance, the gift you intended for your witness/beneficiary may be voided.

Before you find yourself in an even worse position, you must retain legal representation from Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC. One of the competent Butler County estate planning attorneys from our law firm will guide you on what to do.