There are four types of wills: witnessed; holographic; statutory and international. All four of these will be discussed in more detail below. Wills are normally incorporated into a revocable living trust since a will is subject to probate and the attendant fees and costs. The fees can easily be thousands of dollars. If you have a will and not a revocable living trust, we urge you to contact our office for a complimentary consultation on the costs you will incur if the will is probated. In San Diego County, there are two courthouses which are for probate. The first is in the Madge Bradley Courthouse in downtown San Diego and the second is in Vista in the North County of San Diego.

The first category of wills is a witnessed will. This must meet all of the requirements as listed: must be in writing; must be signed by the testator or signed under the direction of the testator; signed in the presence of two witnesses who are both present at the same time and signed by the two witnesses with the understanding that they are signing a will as a witness. If not all of these requirements are met, the will is not valid and the estate will proceed as an "intestate" estate which has mandatory distributions under the law. The purpose of a will or any estate plan is to be able to have the beneficiaries which are chosen by the testator to receive the property however this will not occur if the will is not valid. Our firm does not normally recommend a witnessed will if the value of the estate in total exceeds $100,000 or there is over $20,000 in real property as this necessitate probate of the estate.

The second category of wills is holographic. The holographic will is very easy to contest since there are only two requirements: that the will be in the own handwriting of the testator and that the will must show testamentary intent. There are often issues as to whether the handwriting is that of the testator and handwriting experts are then employed to take an exemplar and give an expert opinion as to whether to signature is that of the testator or not. In addition, there are other issues such as capacity and duress since normally holographic wills are not notarized. In addition,

there is the requirement that there must be testamentary intent from the "four corners" of the documents. Since most holographic wills are not written by attorneys nor with the advice of an attorney, this can be an issue. As above, if the holographic will is not valid, then the estate will be probate.

The third category of wills is statutory. These are most often found in stationary and other stores and are pre printed. These are normally not prepared by attorneys and there is a strict requirement that there are to be no changes allowed to the printed verbiage. As such, these are not wills which are recommended by our firm since no changes can be made to the language and many of the pre printed forms have not been changed for many years and do not reflect the current state of the law. It is worth a complimentary and confidential consultation in our office to have a proper will prepared if your estate is under $100,000 total or under $20,000 in real property.

The fourth category of wills is international. An international will is a will which was prepared in a foreign country. In these cases, the courts look to the laws in the country of origin and country where the will was executed. This requires knowledge of the law of that country and can become very complicated.

Capacity is an issue in all wills. A will must have either full capacity or diminished capacity. There may need to be an evaluation to determine capacity at the time the will was entered into. If the testator has no capacity, then the will is not valid. In our office, we discuss capacity issues with the testators.

There are also what are termed "pour over" wills however these are wills which do not stand alone and are used in trusts for assets not placed in the trust when the testator passes away. This can create a probate of assets not properly placed in the trust.

It is essential to let your attorney know if you have any wills which were executed in the past as these will need to be revoked.

Contact Us Online or call us at 877-HELP411 [877-435-7411] in Southern California or 858-618-5510 or e mail us. We will be pleased to offer you a complimentary and confidential consultation up to a length of 30 minutes to discuss strategies and techniques to assist in protecting your rights and trying to obtain your legal goals.