Cancelling Your Will

You have reviewed your will and you realize that you need to make major changes. You can cancel your will at any time. Cancelling is also called “revoking”.

A few rules to follow

You must follow some rules if you want to cancel your will.

Form of a revocation

The revocation must either be handwritten (holograph revocation), made in the presence of witnesses or done by a notary. The form you use to cancel your will can be different from the form of your original will. This means that your revocation can be handwritten even if your will was done by a notary.

However, if the revocation is handwritten or made in the presence of witnesses, it must be validated by the court or a notary after you die, which involves costs and delays.

Legal capacity

To cancel your will, you must be “capable“, in the legal sense of the word. This means that you must understand what you’re signing. However, an adult under tutorship or a person for whom a protection mandate has been homologated can still, in some situations, change their will. For such a change to be valid, a court must verify that the person understood what a revocation is.

How to do a handwritten revocation?

A will can be revoked in many ways, depending on what your end goal is.

Cancel an entire will

You can revoke your entire will.

If you revoke you entire will without making a new one, who inherits your property will be decided by the law.

Cancel part of a will

If you revoke only certain parts of your will, the other parts continue to apply.

Cancel a will and express new wishes

You can revoke your entire will and make a new one, all in the same document.

This new will must say that your earlier wishes no longer apply.

Other Ways to Revoke All or Part of a Will

Aside from a written revocation, you can also cancel your will in other ways.

Before you die, you can give away or sell all or part of the property mentioned in your will. Say your grandson is set to inherit your chalet, according to your will. If you sell this chalet before you die, it cancels the part of your will that mentioned this specific property.

You could also destroy, tear or shred the original version of your will made in the presence of witnesses or your handwritten will.

If you only want to cancel parts of your will, you can cross out the parts you want to cancel on the original version of your holograph will or your will made in the presence of witnesses. In this situation, you can sign and date the parts you cross out so your succession knows you’re the one who wrote on the will.