Witness to a will asked to attend interview with Probate Registry

[pjhawes]

Hi,

Thought I'd re-phrase my previous question.

My late Grandfather's will has been looked at by a Solicitor who has confirmed it appears to be valid.

Probate is in the process of being applied for and The Probate Registry have written to the Executor (my Dad) asking him to contact one of the witnesses for an interview to be arranged as there appears to be a 'problem with the will'

Does anyone have any thoughts on what could be wrong? I doubt the Probate Registry would tell my Dad what's wrong as that could compromise what they ask the witness.

Cheers.

[factor-fiction]

I thought this had been covered - I thought it was felt that issue was probably related to the fact that the witnessing of the wills had not been dated.

[pjhawes]

Yes I guess that's one possibility, I'm just curious in case anyone else has any other thoughts on what it could be.

[dzug2]

They will be asking the witness (under oath) one or more of the following questions:

is this your signature
did you see the deceased sign the document
did you sign immediately afterwards
was the second witness present at the same time
did s/he sign then
were there any obvious signs of duress


or they may ask him to describe what happened, with the aim of answering the above questions in the process

It's not the wording of the will that is under question (if the solicitor is correct) but the procedure by which it was signed and witnessed.

[pjhawes]

Just an update on this... The letter from the Probate Registry, apparently the wording is 'the witness will be asked what happened when the will was signed'

So as per previous answers it would appear it is to ensure the will was executed properly.

I have heard of this thing called 'presumption of due execution' which seems to imply that if witnesses have since died or are unavailable then the court will invoke this 'presumption' and it would take the strongest evidence to prove the will was not executed properly.

Personally I would question the memory recall of a witness who witnessed a will 23 years ago about what happened. I doubt I could remember that far back about exactly what happened. I guess this is partly why the 'presumption' exists.