How to Make Changes to Your Will – Codicil

Estate planning documents are not meant to be static.

Things change.

You may lose touch with a friend, have a disagreement with a relative, or your views on politics, religion, or medicine may change.

Whatever the case may be, when these changes happen in your life, they may require you to make some changes to your will.

That’s what we’re talking about today on the Rich Life Lawyer Show.

How to Make Changes to Your Will

There are a couple of different ways to make changes to your will.

The first way is to create and execute an entirely new will. Most people don’t want to do that, particularly if they just want to change one or two things within the will (say name a new guardian or give someone a specific percentage of the estate).

Executing a new will often also takes a significant amount of time and money.

The second way is to execute what’s called a codicil.

A codicil is essentially a mini-will that you can attach to your already executed will, changing one or more elements of your original will.

It is executed the same way a will is, with two witnesses, but it can be as little as a one page document.

And the cost is significantly cheaper – often 70-80% cheaper than executing a brand new will.

If you are thinking about making changes to your will, before you run out and create a brand new will, talk to an estate planning attorney about executing a codicil. It will be just as effective, will be cheaper, will be faster, and will be easier.

How to Make Changes to Your Will – Codicil Transcript

Hey everybody, Christopher Small here this is episode twenty of the Rich Life lawyer Show. Today we’re going to be talking about what to do if you want to make small change to your will. Hey everybody, so today we’re talking about what to do if you’ll make a small change to your will and the legal term for is a codicil. Okay codicil is essentially an amendment to your will. It’s just a little add on to your will. You can change whatever you want in the will with a codicil. You simply have to fill out the form, execute it, attach it to the back of your will. That’s all good.

Couple of things to remember. First things first, the codicil for to be effective has to meet the same elements of a will. So it has to be in writing. You have to be over eighteen and of sound mind to execute a codicil. And you need two witnesses to make the codicil effective. To make it easier to act to, to use in the future. You can also add on an affidavit of the witnesses so that they don’t show up for the court. If it ever needs to be used. So, it’s super simple. It’s relatively easy in our office. We typically charge about two hundred bucks for something like that. You know we want to make sure that we get your information right.

Prepare the documents, get them signed. Two hundred bucks, bada bing bada bang. Way easier than executing your will. You know we’re talking about seven, eight hundred bucks. So, I hope this helped. If you are thinking about making changes your will. Don’t let the price or the hassle hold you back. Get out there, make those changes. You know we’re talking about legacy. We’re talking about generational wealth. These are things are important and worth at least the cost of getting that work done. This is Christopher Small from CMS Law Firm. Hope you enjoyed this episode of the show and I’ll talk to you next week. Bye