On Friday 16th May 2025, the Law Commission published its final report titled Modernising Wills Law. The aim of the Wills Bill 2025 is to essentially modernise will-making in line with the society we live in today. The Wills Act 1837 has to date governed how we create Wills in England and Wales for many years and is considered to be outdated. Therefore, such a change is welcomed by professionals in the industry.
Let’s take a look at some of the key recommendations in the Wills Bill 2025.
Provision for the introduction of electronic Wills and remote witnessing
This is a significant change to the wet ink signature that has always been the case with Wills and LPA’s. It is proposed that testators will be able to sign their Wills digitally as long as secure systems ensure the authenticity of the signature to avoid issues of fraud or even undue influence. As well as the testator, the witnesses will also be able to sign Wills remotely via video. You may recall remote attestation was accepted in the industry during COVID-19 times which worked very well but the ability to continue in this way was ended by the emergency legislation coming to an end in January 2024, so this change is welcomed by the Society. This will also make the process of signing Wills much easier.
Of course, much thought will need to go into putting in place a high level of protection to reduce concerns of possible risks of fraud and undue influence.
Abolishing the rule that marriage or civil partnership revokes a Will
How the law currently stands is that marriage or civil partnership revokes a will and therefore if the intention is for the Will to remain in force after the act of marriage or civil partnership, a contemplation of marriage or civil partnership clause must be included in the Will. This rule can be exploited by people who enter into a predatory marriage with someone who is vulnerable for the purpose of inheriting from them.
The new Bill proposes to abolish this revocation.
Undue influence and testamentary capacity
The Bill proposes that the test set out in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 should apply to all assessments of testamentary capacity, therefore replacing the historical Banks v Goodfellows test.
If the recommendations are enacted the Courts will also have more discretion to infer undue influence where there is evidence that that gives them reasonable grounds to suspect there was undue influence. This means the Courts will think about the relationship between the testator and the person who may have used undue influence, that person’s role in making the will and what was happening when the Will was made.
This provides much better protection to testators.
Reducing the minimum age from 18 to 16
Currently testators must be a minimum age to make a Will. The Bill proposes to reduce this to the age of 16.
Giving the Court a dispensing power to recognise a will that does not comply with formalities
This proposes that the Court will have the power to deem a Will as valid even if the formality requirements have not been met, as long as the testator’s intentions were very clear.
This will be a discretionary power of the Court and be applied on a case-by-case basis rather than a blanket approach.
There are a lot of practical matters that will need to be considered in much greater detail especially with the proposed introduction of electronic wills, such as what security measures will be put in place to reduce the risks of fraud and overcome concerns that digital signing could increase the number of fraudulent wills and those made under undue influence.
In our view the proposed Wills Bill 2025 is a welcomed change overall and a step in the right direction taking what is a very archaic framework and bringing it forward into the modern age.
For more information on the Report this can be found here. We will also be publishing a more detailed summary shortly so keep an eye on the SWW Newsletter.
