Will requirements in Massachusetts

Who can make a will in Massachusetts

Massachusetts asks two things of you: that you are at least 18, and that you are of sound mind when you sign. Sound mind is a practical standard, not a medical one. It means you understand what you own, who your close family is, and that the document in front of you is your will.

Signing your will in Massachusetts

1. 1You sign

   You sign the will yourself, or direct someone else to sign it for you in your conscious presence and at your direction.

2. 2Two witnesses sign

   Two witnesses sign after watching you sign, or after you acknowledge that the signature or the will is yours. Choose adults who inherit nothing under it.

3. 3The affidavit

   Optional but worth doing: a self-proving affidavit, sworn by you and your witnesses before a notary, so the court can later accept the will without locating anyone who was in the room.

Handwritten and electronic wills

Massachusetts does not recognize a holographic will: a page written and signed only in your own hand, without witnesses, carries no legal weight here, however clearly it states your wishes. Its execution statute requires two witnesses for every will and has no separate provision for an unwitnessed handwritten one. Massachusetts has not authorized electronic wills either. What eventually reaches your executor and the probate court is paper, signed in ink by you and two witnesses. That is exactly how Myend’s Last Will works everywhere: you build it online, then print it and sign it with your witnesses, the paper form every state accepts.

Property and your spouse

Massachusetts is a common-law property state: what you earn and hold in your own name is yours to leave, not automatically split with your spouse the way it would be in a community property state. But a will cannot fully disinherit a spouse here. Under the state’s elective share, a surviving spouse who files a claim within six months of probate can take one third of the personal and real property if you left children or their descendants, or twenty-five thousand dollars plus half of what remains if you left no children but other kindred survive you. A further limit is built into the statute itself: once the spouse’s share would be worth more than twenty-five thousand dollars, the amount above that line is not handed over outright. The spouse instead receives only the income from it for life, a life estate, while the underlying property eventually passes as your will directs.

Your executor

Massachusetts calls the person who carries out your will the executor. You can name almost any capable adult, whether or not they live in Massachusetts; the state does not require an in-state resident or an agent to receive papers on an out-of-state executor’s behalf, a lighter rule than some of its New England neighbors apply. New to the role? Start with what an executor actually does.

If someone challenges the will

Massachusetts takes a penalty clause in a will seriously and enforces it largely as written. If your will disinherits anyone who challenges it and they contest anyway and lose, Massachusetts courts will generally hold that provision against them. When the state adopted its own version of the modern probate code, it left out a default many other states kept: an exception that spares a challenger who had probable cause to contest. Massachusetts’s statute carries no such exception, which makes a penalty clause here a firmer deterrent than in most states.

If you do not make a will

Without a will, Massachusetts probate court works through a fixed sequence of relatives to decide who inherits, a sequence that has no way of knowing who you actually wanted to provide for. For blended families, unmarried partners, and close friends, that default order rarely matches real life. A valid will is how you replace the state’s sequence with your own decisions. See what happens if you die without a will.

What is different about Massachusetts

Twice, when Massachusetts wrote its own version of the modern probate code, it chose the stricter path: no exception for a will in your own handwriting, and none for a challenge brought in good faith either.

Many states that adopted a version of the Uniform Probate Code picked up two of its optional safety valves along the way: a carve-out that honors an unwitnessed will if it is entirely in the testator’s own hand, and a rule that will not enforce a no-contest clause against someone who had probable cause to challenge. Massachusetts left both out. Its execution statute recognizes only a will signed by two witnesses, with no separate holographic provision, and its penalty-clause statute enforces a no-contest clause as written, without the probable-cause exception several neighboring states carry.

The same older, careful instinct shows up in how Massachusetts protects a spouse. A surviving spouse who files a claim within six months of probate can take one third of the estate if you left children, or twenty-five thousand dollars plus half of what remains if you did not (MGL c.191 § 15). Once that share is worth more than twenty-five thousand dollars, the amount above it does not pass outright: the spouse receives only the income from it for life, while the property itself eventually goes where your will directs. Most states replaced this kind of life-estate structure decades ago with a flat percentage of the estate. Massachusetts kept it.

Common questions

Sources and review