Legal advisors to the government are proposing radical changes to inheritance laws. The Law Commission is encouraging the adoption of regulations that would allow individuals to use voicemail and text messages in lieu of traditional wills. Under current laws, which date back as far as 1839, wills must be written and signed by the testator as well as two witnesses. The commission has characterized this system as being outdated and in desperate need of modernization. Under these new proposals, judges would be able to balance the weight of digital evidence to determine if digital data offered should be allowed in court as evidence of a legally-binding representation of a decedent’s last wishes.
See Olivia Rudgard, Could a Text Become Your Will? The Plans to Revolutionise ‘Outdated’ Legacy System, The Telegraph, July 13, 2017.
Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) & Margaret Ryznar for bringing this article to my attention.
