You can change your will without a lawyer in one of two ways: add a short amendment called a codicil, or write a new will that revokes the old one. Both are legal in every state, and both must be signed and witnessed with the same formalities your original will required. Cut a corner on those formalities and a court can ignore your changes, or throw out the whole document.
Codicil or New Will
A codicil is a separate document that modifies your existing will without replacing it. It works well for targeted fixes: swapping one executor for another, updating a beneficiary’s legal name after a marriage, adjusting a dollar amount, or adding a gift you forgot.
A new will is the better choice when the changes are substantial. Remarriage, divorce, the birth of a child, a major shift in assets, or a full rethinking of who gets what all call for starting fresh. A new will stands on its own, so no one has to piece together an original plus one or more amendments to figure out what you meant. Estate attorneys generally advise that once you’re drafting a second or third codicil, you should write a new will instead. Stacked codicils create room for contradiction, and contradiction invites a challenge.
Writing a Codicil
A codicil must be executed with the same formalities as a will: signed, dated, and witnessed under your state’s rules. A handwritten note stapled to your will does not count unless you live in one of the roughly half of states that recognize holographic wills, and even there the requirements are strict.
At the top of the document, identify it as a codicil. Include your full legal name, your address, and the date. Reference the date of the original will you’re amending so there’s no ambiguity about which document you’re changing. Then describe each change in plain, specific language. For example: “I amend Article III of my will dated January 1, 2020, to replace John Doe as executor with Jane Smith.” If you’re removing a provision, say so directly. If you’re adding something new, spell it out completely.
End the codicil with a statement confirming that everything else in your original will remains unchanged. That prevents anyone from arguing that your silence on a particular provision meant you intended to revoke it. Then sign and witness the codicil the same way you would a will.
Writing a Replacement Will
When you write a new will, you’re starting over. Every instruction must appear in the new document: executor, beneficiaries, guardians for minor children, and how you want the estate handled. Do not assume anything from the old will carries forward.
The single most important sentence in a replacement will is the revocation clause. It goes near the beginning and states that you revoke all prior wills and codicils. Without that language, a court might try to read the old and new wills together, and conflicting provisions can spark a dispute among beneficiaries. A plain sentence like “I revoke all wills and codicils I have previously made” is enough.
Once the new will is properly signed and witnessed, physically destroy every copy of the old one. Shred it, tear it up, or burn it. Leaving an old will intact is one of the most common mistakes people make. If someone finds the outdated copy after your death and the new one goes missing, the old will could end up controlling your estate.
Do Not Mark Up Your Existing Will
One of the fastest ways to create a legal mess is to grab a pen and start crossing out lines, writing in margins, or scratching through names on your current will. In most states, handwritten edits on a typed or printed will have no legal effect unless they’re executed with full will formalities. A crossed-out beneficiary name does not remove that person. A new name written in the margin does not add anyone. The original provisions generally stay in force because the changes were never properly witnessed.
Heavy cross-outs can also be read as an attempt to revoke part of the will by physical act, which raises the question of whether you meant to revoke just that section or the whole document. Courts have spent real time sorting out those ambiguities. If you want to change something, write a codicil or a new will and leave the original unmarked.
Signing and Witnessing
Whether you’re executing a codicil or a new will, the signing is where most DIY efforts go wrong. The baseline in nearly every state is that you sign the document in the presence of at least two witnesses, who then sign it themselves. The witnesses don’t need to read the document. They need to see you sign it, or hear you acknowledge that the signature is yours, and understand that it’s your will or codicil.
State rules diverge on the details. Some states require the witnesses to sign in each other’s presence; others only require them to sign in yours. A few states set the witness age at 14, though most require witnesses to be legal adults. Look up your state’s will-execution statute before signing anything.
In most states, witnesses should be “disinterested,” meaning they don’t stand to inherit anything under your will. Your spouse, your children, your beneficiaries, and even the spouses of your beneficiaries are poor choices. If a court later finds that a witness had a financial stake in your will, the consequence in many states is that the witness’s gift gets thrown out, even if everything else was done correctly. Pick neighbors, coworkers, or friends who aren’t mentioned anywhere in the document.
Holographic Wills and Codicils
About half of U.S. states recognize holographic wills, which are handwritten and unwitnessed. In those states you can also write a holographic codicil. The entire document typically has to be in your own handwriting and signed by you, with no witnesses required. It’s a quick option for simple changes if your state allows it, but a witnessed document is always safer. Holographic instruments get challenged in court more often than the witnessed kind.
Self-Proving Affidavit
Nearly every state lets you attach a self-proving affidavit to your will or codicil. It’s a sworn statement, signed by you and your witnesses in front of a notary public, confirming that the signing ceremony happened correctly. The affidavit removes the need for your witnesses to appear in probate court after your death to testify that they watched you sign. Since probate might happen years or decades later, when witnesses may have moved or died, this saves your executor a real headache. Some states build the affidavit into the will itself; others treat it as a separate page. Either way, the small effort of finding a notary is worth it.
Update Your Beneficiary Designations Too
Before you spend time rewriting your will, know that a large share of most people’s wealth passes outside of it entirely. Life insurance policies, 401(k) accounts, IRAs, annuities, bank accounts with pay-on-death designations, and brokerage accounts with transfer-on-death designations all go directly to whoever is named as beneficiary on those accounts. A will does not override those designations. If your will says your daughter inherits your IRA but the beneficiary form at your brokerage still names your ex-spouse, your ex-spouse gets the IRA.
The same holds for property held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship. That asset passes automatically to the surviving co-owner, no matter what the will says. If you’re changing your will because of a divorce, a new marriage, or a death in the family, update your beneficiary designations at every financial institution at the same time. This is one of the most overlooked steps in estate planning, and getting it wrong can undo everything the updated will was meant to accomplish.
Storing the Document
If you wrote a codicil, store it with the original will. If the two get separated, there’s a real chance the codicil never gets found. Some people clip them together or keep them in the same envelope. Don’t staple through the original will; staple holes can raise questions about whether pages were removed.
If you wrote a new will, destroy the old one completely, then store the new will somewhere secure and accessible. A fireproof safe at home is a common choice, as is filing the will with your county probate court, which many courts offer for a small fee. Tell your executor exactly where to find it. Think twice about putting your only copy in a safe deposit box: access to the box is typically frozen at death until a court appoints a personal representative, and the will itself is often what’s needed to get that appointment. Keep a copy somewhere your executor can reach right away.
Storage matters more than it sounds. If your will was last known to be in your possession and can’t be found after your death, most states presume you destroyed it on purpose to revoke it. Your estate would then pass under your state’s default inheritance rules, which may bear no resemblance to your wishes.
When to Hire a Lawyer
The DIY approach works for straightforward changes: a new executor, an updated gift, a simple redistribution among existing beneficiaries. Some situations carry enough risk that a lawyer is cheap insurance. Consider professional help if you’re disinheriting a spouse or child, since most states have laws that protect certain family members and a poorly drafted clause can be struck down. Blended families with children from multiple marriages add complexity that a form template rarely handles well. Business owners need specialized succession language. And anyone with a taxable estate should get tax planning advice, because a mistake there can cost your heirs far more than an attorney’s fee.
If someone has already challenged your current will, or you have reason to believe a family member might contest your changes, a lawyer can structure both the document and the signing ceremony in ways that make a successful challenge much harder. Self-made wills get contested more often than attorney-drafted ones, and they lose more often too.