Our Weekly Tip: Make Your Codicils Legal

Our Tip of the Week: Writing a legal will is an important act of love for anyone who wishes to make the distribution of their estate easy for their loved ones. Your legal will is effective immediately upon completion, but does not go into effect until after you die. Until that time, you may amend your will. This amendment must be completed as a separate document called a codicil.

Credit: wills.about.com

How-to Suggestion: If you have created your legal will with the help of an attorney, consult with your attorney before making any changes to your will. If you have created your will independently, consult your state laws regarding codicils. Codicil templates are widely available online. In either case, it is important that you do not mark up the original copy of your will, as this may render it invalid.

To create a codicil, you will need several witnesses, so consider involving the executor of your estate as well as the people who will be supporting them in that endeavor. If you make more than two codicils to your will over the years, consider writing a brand new legal will so that your executor can follow the instructions in a single document. Similarly, write a new will instead of a codicil if you are making major changes such as including a new spouse, adding or subtracting beneficiaries or changing distributions from family member to charities (or vice versa).