Getting Married Revokes Your Will

There are a number of ways to revoke a Will, including destroying your old Will or making a brand new one stating that the old Will is revoked.

Many people are surprised to learn, however, that getting married or forming a civil partnership revokes an existing Will. The result is that any Will you have made before you marry no longer has any effect and instead the rules of intestacy will govern what happens to your estate.

This could have disastrous consequences, especially if you have already used a solicitor to carefully draft a Will dividing assets between children from a previous relationship and your new spouse. This may have involved a lot of planning, discussion and work to come to an arrangement that suits everybody.

By marrying, you revoke your existing Will and instead your new spouse will inherit at least the first £250,000.00 of your estate. This could cut your children out of your Will altogether and leave them with nothing. They would then be forced into lengthy and expensive court action to benefit from your estate, adding to what will already be a difficult time for them. Alternatively if your estate is much bigger then you could find that your spouse is no longer your main beneficiary and instead other more distant family members as well as your spouse end up inheriting your assets. At its worst the result could be that your spouse is forced to sell assets to pay your relatives.

It is possible to stop marriage revoking your Will should you be contemplating marriage at the date your Will is signed. Your will can be prepared in such a way that it expressly states the Will is not to be revoked when you marry. Without any such expression, and despite what your wishes may be, the act of getting married means that your Will is revoked.

If you find yourself in this situation, then the simplest solution is to execute your Will again. This would bring it back into force and ensure that your last wishes are adhered to following your death. The problem that occurs is that you may not remember to do so or put it off until it is too late to do anything about it. It you have previously made and will and subsequently married it is a good idea to re-execute your will as soon as possible. This will ensure that your wishes are carried out following your death.