Does My Executor Need a Copy of My Will?

Legally, there is no obligation to share your will with your executor, or with anyone else, while you are alive. Your will remains a private document until your death, and you are free to keep its existence and contents entirely confidential if you wish, informing no one, including your named executor.

In practice, however, an executor who has no idea a will exists, cannot find it, or does not know they have even been appointed, faces real practical difficulty. They may end up searching through personal papers, contacting solicitors speculatively, or in the worst case, the estate ends up being administered under the intestacy rules simply because a valid will could not be located in time.

When your executor applies for a grant of probate after your death, they will generally need to submit the original will to the Probate Registry, not just a copy. A copy alone is not normally sufficient to obtain a grant, except in specific and relatively unusual circumstances where the original genuinely cannot be found and its loss can be properly explained and evidenced to the court's satisfaction.

This means a copy of your will is useful to your executor mainly as a source of information, so they understand your wishes, who else is named, and where the original is stored, rather than as a document they can use directly to obtain probate.

At minimum, tell your executor clearly that you have made a will, where the original is stored, and how to access it after your death. This might be a solicitor's storage facility, a bank, a will storage service, or a fire-resistant box at home, but wherever it is, your executor needs enough information to retrieve it without a difficult search.

Some people are uncomfortable sharing the actual contents of their will with an executor, particularly if it also names beneficiaries whose gifts they would rather keep private for now. This is understandable, and it is entirely possible to tell an executor that they have been appointed and where the original will is kept, without necessarily handing over a full copy for them to read in detail.

If privacy matters to you, focus on giving location and access information rather than full content, and consider storing a letter of wishes or additional context separately, to be opened only after your death, if there is anything you want your executor to understand at that stage but not before.

If you make a new will, update an existing one, or move where your will is stored, remember to update whatever information or copy your executor holds. An out of date copy or storage detail can be worse than nothing, since it may lead your executor to a superseded will or an empty storage location.

It is good practice to review this alongside any other update to your will, so your named executor always has accurate, current information about where to find the one document that will actually matter after your death.