If you are the one

A recent Queensland Supreme Court case reminded me of the importance of ensuring clients only ever sign one copy of their final will and are warned against signing duplicates or file copies.

The case, which was heard in October 2018, involved an individual who had signed three identical copies of the will on the same day (8 June 2017).

No doubt her intention was to make it easy for her executors to provide copies of the document to third parties after her death, but instead her actions meant her executors were obliged to make an application to Court to determine which of the three copies of her will should be treated as her final will and granted probate.

Further complicating matters was the fact that none of the three identical wills had a ‘revocation’ clause – this is the clause which appears in most estate planning documents and says that all prior wills are revoked and have no further effect.

Fortunately here, a pragmatic approach was adopted and the judge decided that as all three documents were identical, he would simply choose one to mark as the final will and grant probate to that copy.

The issue of multiple signed documents arises more commonly than one might imagine.  At a previous firm, I recall we used to send a file copy of the will at the same time we sent the final signing copy and despite providing clear instructions not to sign the file copy, on odd occasion the clients would still sign both versions and send them back to us.

The practical lesson here is that if you are sending wills to a client for signing (or assisting with witnessing their wills), it is important to ensure they only sign a single copy and aren’t tempted to sign duplicates or file copies.

For those who are interested, the case is Re Gawley (deceased) [2018] QSC 242.