Holographic will

Wills, trusts and estates
Part of the common law series
Wills
Legal history of wills Joint wills and mutual wills Will contract Codicil Holographic will Oral will Sections Attestation clause Residuary clause Incorporation by reference Contest Testamentary capacity Undue influence Insane delusion Fraud No-contest clause Property disposition Lapse and anti-lapse Ademption Abatement Satisfaction of legacies Acts of independent significance Elective share Pretermitted heir
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Estate administration
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Related topics
Advance directive (Living will) Blind trust Forced heirship Totten trust
Other common law areas
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A holographic will, or olographic testament,^[1] is a will and testament which is a holographic document, meaning that it has been entirely handwritten and signed by the testator. Holographic wills have been treated differently by different jurisdictions throughout history. For example, some jurisdictions historically required that a holographic will had to be signed by witnesses attesting to the validity of the testator's signature and intent.

In many jurisdictions, holographic wills need to meet only minimal requirements to be valid:

• In case of doubt, there must be evidence that the testator actually created the will, which can be proved through the use of witnesses, handwriting experts, or other methods.
• The testator must have had the intellectual capacity to write the will, although there is a presumption that a testator had such capacity unless there is evidence to the contrary.
• The testator must be expressing a wish to direct the distribution of his or her estate (or parts thereof) to beneficiaries.

In other jurisdictions, holographic wills are only accepted if created in emergency situations, such as when the testator is alone, trapped, and near death. Some jurisdictions that do not generally recognize unwitnessed holographic wills grant exceptions to members of the armed services who are involved in armed conflicts and sailors at sea, though in both cases the validity of the holographic will expires at a certain time after it is drafted.

The format of a holographic will can vary greatly. The Guinness Book of World Records lists the shortest will in history as "Vše ženě" (Czech, "everything to wife"), written on the bedroom wall of a man who realized his imminent death.^[2] It was deemed to meet the minimum requirements under Czech inheritance law, being his own work and no one else's. On 8 June 1948, in Saskatchewan, Canada, a farmer named Cecil George Harris who had become trapped under his own tractor carved a will into the tractor's fender. It read, "In case I die in this mess I leave all to the wife. Cecil Geo. Harris." The fender was probated and was deemed valid as his will under Canadian inheritance law.^[3] In the U.S. State of Arizona, the postscript to a letter was upheld as a valid holographic will.^[4]