How NOT to Amend Your Will
Today I encountered a situation where a client executed a Will (maybe 10 years ago) and, instead of seeing an attorney when she need to make changes, had (5 years later) written changes on the Will in pen. This is a bad idea for a few reasons:
1. The changes to the Will were not signed by the testator in the presence of witnesses, so they aren't valid.
2. Even if the changes had been considered valid, because they were written in (and the testator had poor handwriting), they were hard to read (thereby making it hard to understand what the testator was trying to do).
3. The changes could potentially be viewed as a revocation of the original Will. Under the Illinois Probate Act (here), a Will "may be revoked... by [the testator] burning, cancelling, tearing or obliterating it."
The best way to amend your Will is to have a new Will or a codicil prepared.
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