With the world talking about the movement into a paperless digital age, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, the technologizing of wills is still up for debate.
As written earlier, the proposal that text messages be accepted as a medium for wills was rejected by the United Kingdom’s Law Commission.
On the contrary, the Supreme Court of Queensland has in October 2017 accepted an unsent, draft text message on a dead man’s mobile phone as an official will. While we emphasise that the text message was unsent and in draft form, the Court there made some useful comments as to the amount of evidence which they needed to be satisfied that the deceased drafted the text message as a will. This included, amongst other things, the wording of the text message, e.g. the use of the words “my will”. The deceased also made clear references to his house and superannuation, while specifying that his wife was to take her own things, all of which indicated that he was aware of the nature and extent of his estate.
While we cannot comment substantively on Australian law, we understand that the law in Queensland was changed in 2006 to allow less formal types of documents to be considered as a will. We also understand that in Australia there has generally been movement away from strict compliance to traditional will formalities.
Further to the foregoing, while there seems to be a divergence in views (i.e. between English and Australian law) as to whether wills by text can be accepted, given that there has yet to be any legislative change in Singapore similarly allowing less formal types of documents to be considered as wills, it is unlikely, in the event someone tries to apply for a grant of probate in Singapore using an ‘unsent, draft’ text message as a will, that that unsent draft text message will be recognized as a will.
That said, if you would like to draft a will, take note to ensure that the formal requirements are met. This includes, inter alia, signing the will in the presence of two witnesses (both of whom should not be beneficiaries under your will).