You've just been appointed executor. The will in front of you is handwritten on lined paper, stuffed in a drawer, dated three years ago. Or maybe it's a printed DIY kit from an online service, filled in by your late uncle when his business was small, but now worth millions.
And already, one of the beneficiaries is questioning it.
Can a handwritten or DIY will be challenged? Short answer: yes. Easily.
Can it still be valid? Also yes. But valid and safe from challenge are two different things.
This article walks through how Australian courts treat these documents, where they most often go wrong, and what you, as a business owner, executor, or advisor, should be thinking about if you're relying on (or inheriting) a handwritten or DIY will.
Key Takeaways
- Handwritten wills can be legally valid if they meet formal requirements: signed, witnessed by two adults, and made with testamentary intent, but many are not properly executed
- Courts in most states can admit informal wills (including notes, letters, and even text messages) if they show clear testamentary intention, but that requires a court application and invites disputes
- DIY wills are most vulnerable to ambiguity, poor drafting, and missing details around business assets, trusts, and control, not just "who gets what"
- Challenges most often arise on grounds of capacity, undue influence, failure to comply with formalities, ambiguous gifts, or family provision claims from disappointed beneficiaries
- Executors dealing with DIY or handwritten wills should seek legal advice immediately, preserve all documents, and avoid premature distributions until validity and competing claims are addressed
- Business owners with complex estates face disproportionate risk: a DIY will drafted when the business was small rarely fits once the structure grows, and vague instructions lead to disputes among heirs and partners
Can a Handwritten Will Be Legally Valid in Australia?
Yes. A handwritten will can be just as legally valid as a typed, professionally drafted document.
The requirements are straightforward: the will must be in writing, signed by the person making it (the testator), and witnessed by at least two adults who are present when the testator signs. The witnesses sign as well, in the testator's presence. The document must be made with the clear intention that it operates as a will.
If all those boxes are ticked, it doesn't matter whether the will is handwritten on a legal pad, typed on a computer, or prepared by a solicitor.
The problem is not the handwriting. The problem is what happens when one or more of those requirements is missed, or when the wording leaves too much room for interpretation.
Most handwritten and DIY wills are prepared by people without legal training, often in a hurry or under stress. That's when the drafting gets loose. Instructions become vague. Witnesses aren't present at the same time. Pages aren't signed. Amendments are added later without proper execution.
And when the testator dies, those gaps turn into arguments.
Handwriting alone doesn't invalidate a will, but handwritten wills are statistically more likely to have execution or drafting defects that invite challenge later.
How Courts Deal with Informal Wills and Documents That Don't Quite Comply
Here's where things get interesting. And by interesting, I mean unpredictable.
Most Australian states and territories have legislation that gives courts the power to treat a document as a will even if it doesn't meet the formal requirements, if the court is satisfied that the document sets out the testator's testamentary intentions and was intended to operate as a will.
This is often called the court's power to "dispense with" formalities or to admit an "informal will".
In New South Wales, that power sits in the Succession Act 2006. Queensland, South Australia, and most other jurisdictions have equivalent provisions.
What does it cover? In theory, almost anything. Courts have admitted unsigned drafts, letters, text messages, notes written on hospital forms, even video recordings as wills, provided there was enough evidence that the testator intended that document to be their will and it expressed their testamentary wishes.
Sounds flexible. And it is. But flexibility is not the same as certainty.
These cases require a Supreme Court application. You need evidence: often affidavits from people who knew the testator, context about when and why the document was created, sometimes expert evidence about handwriting or mental capacity. And if someone wants to oppose the application, they can.
So yes, a handwritten note that wasn't properly witnessed might still be accepted as a will. But getting to that point involves litigation, cost, delay, and contested factual questions.
And here's the catch: the more informal the document, the easier it becomes for disappointed beneficiaries to argue it doesn't reflect the testator's true final intentions, or that it was made under undue influence, or without proper capacity.
The court's power to admit informal wills is a safety net, not a substitute for doing it properly in the first place.
If you're relying on an informal document as your will, understand that your executor may need to bring a court application just to have it recognised. That process is public, contested, and expensive, even if it ultimately succeeds.
Where Handwritten and DIY Wills Most Often Go Wrong
You don't see disputes over perfectly drafted DIY wills. You see disputes over the ones that looked fine at the time but turn out to be ambiguous, incomplete, or in conflict with other documents.
Here are the patterns that come up repeatedly:
Vague or incomplete gifts. "I leave my business to my children equally." Sounds clear. But which business? The trading company? The trust that holds the property? The shares in the holding company? What about the shareholder loan account? And does "equally" mean equal shares in the entity, or equal value after someone buys the others out?
A professionally drafted will would define those terms. A DIY will often doesn't.
Missing or conflicting executor appointments. The will names one executor, but doesn't say what happens if that person predeceases the testator, or is unwilling to act. Or it names joint executors but doesn't address what happens if they disagree. Or the person named as executor is also a major beneficiary, and the other beneficiaries immediately distrust them.
Poor witnessing. One witness instead of two. Witnesses who signed at different times, not in the testator's presence. Pages that are unsigned or undated. Amendments made later in different handwriting with no witness signatures at all.
Each of these failures gives a challenger an opening.
Conflict with other documents. A shareholder agreement says the deceased's shares must be offered to the other shareholders at a set formula. The DIY will says the shares go to the kids. Now there's a fight between the will and the contract. Or the testator sets up a family trust with specific succession provisions, but the will tries to deal with trust assets directly, something a trust beneficiary generally can't do by will.
No capacity or undue influence questions addressed. If the will is handwritten and the testator was elderly, unwell, or in a difficult family situation when they wrote it, questions about mental capacity or undue influence become much easier for a disappointed family member to raise. A professionally prepared will usually includes file notes, capacity assessments, and sometimes statutory declarations that make those challenges harder to run. A note written at the kitchen table has none of that protection.
The result: a document that looks simple often turns out to be anything but, once someone challenges it.
The risk with DIY wills is not usually outright invalidity, it's that they're unclear, inconsistent with other arrangements, or vulnerable to attack on grounds that are hard to defend years after the testator has died.
When and How Handwritten and DIY Wills Get Challenged
Challenging a will is not difficult. You don't need to prove fraud or forgery to get a case started. You just need an arguable ground.
And handwritten or DIY wills give challengers plenty of material.
Lack of testamentary capacity. Did the testator understand what they were doing when they wrote the will? Did they know what assets they had? Did they understand who their natural beneficiaries were, and the effect of excluding or favouring certain people? If the will is handwritten and the testator was unwell, or there's no contemporaneous medical evidence of capacity, the argument becomes much easier to run.
Undue influence or suspicious circumstances. If one beneficiary benefits significantly, and that person was in a position to influence the testator when the will was written, the court may scrutinise the circumstances. Was the will written in that person's home? Did they arrange the witnesses? Was there any independent legal advice? A DIY will prepared in the presence of a major beneficiary is a red flag.
Failure to comply with formalities. If the will is missing a witness signature, or signed after the testator died, or amended in handwriting with no witnesses, the challenger can argue it's not a valid will at all. The executor may then need to apply to admit it as an informal will, and the challenger can oppose that application.
Competing documents. If there's an earlier formal will, and a later handwritten note that appears to change things, the question becomes: which document governs? Did the handwritten note revoke the earlier will, or was it just a draft? Courts will look at evidence of intention, but that's a factual fight, not a simple legal ruling.
Family provision claims. Even if the will is valid, a spouse, child, or dependent who feels inadequately provided for can bring a family provision claim. DIY wills are more vulnerable here because they often fail to address why certain people were excluded or given less, and they don't include the kind of reasoning or statement of intentions that helps defend those decisions later.
How long does this take? Months, often years. How much does it cost? Six figures is common once litigation is properly underway. And who pays? Usually the estate, which means everyone, challengers and beneficiaries alike, loses.
If you're a business owner with a handwritten or DIY will, ask yourself: would it survive a challenge from a disappointed family member with a lawyer? If the answer is "I'm not sure", that's your signal.
Executors can be caught in the crossfire. If you're appointed under a DIY will and a challenge is threatened, get independent legal advice immediately. You may need to apply for directions or seek court approval before distributing, to protect yourself from personal liability.
What This Means for Business Owners and People with Complex Estates
Let's be direct: if your estate includes a business, a family trust, a self-managed super fund, or significant investments, a handwritten or DIY will is probably not fit for purpose.
Not because it's automatically invalid, but because it almost certainly doesn't address the things that matter most.
Consider what happens when you die owning shares in a trading company. Who gets the shares? That's the easy part. But who controls the board? Who becomes a director? If the shares are divided among your three children, do they all become directors, or does one child take operational control while the others are passive shareholders?
A DIY will that says "my shares in XYZ Pty Ltd to my children equally" answers the first question. It does not answer the others. And when your children disagree about strategy, dividends, or selling the business, that silence becomes the source of the dispute.
Now add a family trust. Most DIY wills try to deal with trust assets directly: "I leave the trust property to my spouse." But you can't do that. The trust owns the assets, not you. You might control the trust as appointor or through corporate trustees, but those powers have to be dealt with according to the trust deed and corporations law, not by a simple gift in a will.
The same applies to SMSFs. Control and death benefits are governed by the fund's trust deed and superannuation law. A DIY will that tries to direct super benefits will often conflict with binding death benefit nominations or the fund's governing rules.
What looks like a simple estate to the testator, house, business, super, investments, turns out to be a web of different legal structures, each with its own succession rules. A DIY will drafted without understanding that structure doesn't simplify things. It creates ambiguity.
And ambiguity in a business context is expensive. Because when siblings or business partners can't agree on what the will means, or how it interacts with shareholder agreements and trust deeds, they end up in court arguing about it.
If your estate is modest, your family relationships are stable, and your assets are straightforward, a DIY or handwritten will might hold up. It's not ideal, but the cost of getting it wrong is manageable.
Once you have business interests, significant wealth, or any kind of structural complexity, the cost-benefit calculation flips. The risk of a dispute far outweighs the cost of doing it properly.
A DIY will drafted when your business was small and simple doesn't age well. As your structure grows, the will becomes less and less likely to achieve what you intended, and more likely to generate conflict among the people you're trying to provide for.
If You're an Executor Dealing with a Handwritten or DIY Will
You've been appointed executor. The will is handwritten, or printed from a $50 online kit. You've read it. And already, the family is divided.
What do you do?
First: do not distribute. Do not make payments. Do not transfer assets. Not yet.
Your duty as executor is to administer the estate according to the will, but only once you're satisfied the will is valid and there are no competing claims. If there's any doubt, missing signatures, unclear wording, a possible later document, or a family member threatening to challenge, you need to pause.
Second: get legal advice immediately. You are not expected to be a litigator. If there's a question about the will's validity, or if someone has flagged a family provision claim or a challenge on capacity grounds, you need a lawyer with experience in contested estates. Aptum can help you assess the risks and map out your options.
Third: preserve everything. All copies of the will, any drafts, notes, letters, emails, text messages. Anything that might show the testator's intentions or the circumstances in which the will was made. If the matter ends up in court, that material becomes evidence.
Fourth: consider applying for directions. If beneficiaries are making inconsistent demands, or you're unsure whether the will is valid, you can apply to the Supreme Court for directions. That application protects you: the court tells you what to do, and you're protected from personal liability if you follow those directions.
Fifth: if the will is informal or doesn't meet technical requirements, you may need to apply to have it admitted to probate under the court's dispensing power. That application will require affidavit evidence about the document's creation, the testator's intentions, and any surrounding circumstances. Be prepared for that process to take months, and for other parties to oppose it.
Sixth: communicate with beneficiaries, but carefully. You have a duty to keep them informed, but you do not have a duty to act on their instructions if those instructions conflict with the will or your legal obligations. If someone is threatening litigation, everything you say can be used later. Keep communications factual, brief, and on advice.
And finally: understand that your role as executor in a contested estate is not to pick sides. Your job is to protect the estate, get proper legal advice, and follow the court's directions. If that means the estate pays for lawyers on multiple sides, that's the cost of resolving the uncertainty the DIY or handwritten will created.
If you're an executor and the will is ambiguous or contested, applying for court directions early often saves money in the long run. It clarifies your duties, limits your personal exposure, and sometimes forces parties to settle rather than litigate.
How to Reduce the Risk of Disputes Going Forward
If you currently have a handwritten or DIY will, you're probably asking: should I replace it?
The answer depends on your circumstances. But here's how to think through it.
A handwritten or DIY will is better than no will at all. If you're young, healthy, and your estate is simple, savings, a car, personal effects, a basic document is probably adequate for now. It's not optimal, but the downside is limited.
But if any of the following apply, it's time to move beyond DIY:
- You own or control a business, even a small one
- You have assets held in trust structures or an SMSF
- Your estate is worth more than a few hundred thousand dollars
- You have children from more than one relationship
- You want to exclude someone who might reasonably expect to benefit
- You've experienced a major life change, marriage, divorce, birth of a child, since the will was written
- Your business or asset base has grown significantly since you drafted the will
- You're concerned about potential challenges from family members
In those situations, the cost of a contested estate, legal fees, delays, damaged relationships, loss of business value while the dispute drags on, far exceeds the cost of having the will properly drafted in the first place.
A professionally drafted will does more than tick formal requirements. It defines terms clearly. It deals with contingencies: what happens if a beneficiary dies before you, or disclaims, or is bankrupt. It aligns with your business structures and shareholder agreements. It addresses potential family provision claims. And critically, it's prepared in a way that creates a clear evidentiary record if your capacity or intentions are later questioned.
None of that is possible with a $50 kit or a handwritten note.
If your estate includes a business, you also need to think beyond the will. Who takes over operational control? How do you ensure the business can keep running while probate is sorted? Do you have key person insurance, shareholder agreements, powers of attorney, and succession plans for your corporate trustees and appointorships?
A will is one piece. Estate planning for business owners is a coordinated exercise involving your lawyer, accountant, and financial adviser. If those people aren't talking to each other, gaps emerge. And gaps create disputes.
Think of a professionally drafted will as a form of insurance. You pay a modest upfront cost to avoid a much larger cost later, litigation, delays, and conflict among the people you're trying to provide for.
Working with Advisors: Estate Planning as a Team Sport
If you own a business or have a complex asset base, estate planning should not be done in isolation.
Your accountant understands your corporate and trust structures. Your financial planner understands your super and investment portfolio. Your lawyer understands how those pieces work together legally and how to protect them from challenge.
Too often, we see business owners who have excellent accounting and financial advice, but whose will was done years ago with a different lawyer (or DIY) and never updated. The result is a mismatch: the commercial structures have evolved, but the estate plan hasn't kept pace.
Have the conversation. Bring your advisors into the same room (or the same Zoom call) and work through it together. What entities do you control? Who are the appointors and directors? How do death benefits flow from your super fund? What do the shareholder agreements say? How does your will interact with all of that?
If the answer is "I'm not sure", that's the gap you need to close.
A properly coordinated estate plan, updated regularly, does more than avoid disputes. It ensures your business can keep operating, your family is provided for, and the people you've chosen to manage things have clear authority to act.
That's not something a handwritten note or a DIY kit can deliver, no matter how carefully it's drafted.
If you're a director or business owner, treat your estate plan as part of your business risk management strategy. Update it when your structure changes, when key people change, or when your wealth crosses a new threshold. Don't wait until you're unwell or facing a crisis.
What Happens Next: Clarity Is the Best Defence
Handwritten and DIY wills can be legally valid. Courts in Australia will admit informal documents in appropriate circumstances. And plenty of estates are administered under DIY wills without a problem.
But "can be valid" and "safe from challenge" are not the same thing.
The reality is this: handwritten and DIY wills are more vulnerable to ambiguity, execution defects, and challenge on grounds of capacity or undue influence. They are less likely to address business succession, complex assets, or contingencies. And when disputes arise, they provide less evidential protection for executors and beneficiaries.
If your estate is simple and your family relationships are stable, the risk might be acceptable. But if you own a business, have significant assets, or foresee any possibility of conflict among your beneficiaries, a DIY approach is a false economy.
The cost of getting it right now is a fraction of the cost of litigating it later.
If you're an executor dealing with a contested DIY or handwritten will, get advice early. If you're a business owner relying on an old handwritten document, ask yourself whether it still fits. And if you're thinking about drafting your own will to save money, at least understand the risks you're accepting in exchange.
Clarity is the best defence against disputes. And clarity, in this context, comes from proper drafting, proper advice, and a proper understanding of what you're trying to achieve.
Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. The law on wills, estate disputes, and succession varies by state and territory, and every situation is different. If you're an executor dealing with a contested will, a business owner concerned about estate planning, or a beneficiary considering a challenge, you should seek legal advice specific to your circumstances before taking any action.
