How to Replace a Lost Will

When someone dies and their original signed will cannot be found, despite having been in their sole possession beforehand, English law starts from the presumption that they destroyed it themselves, deliberately, with the intention of revoking it. This reflects the principle that only the person who made a will can validly revoke it, so if it is genuinely missing from where they kept it, the law assumes that was their choice.

This presumption exists to prevent people from claiming an inconvenient will 'must have been lost' simply because it does not suit them, and it puts the burden on anyone who wants to rely on a missing will to prove otherwise.

The presumption of destruction is not absolute. It can be rebutted with sufficiently strong evidence that the will was lost accidentally rather than destroyed deliberately: for example, evidence that a house fire, flood or house move accounts for its disappearance, that the deceased spoke positively about the will shortly before death, or that a solicitor's file shows the will was never returned to the client and cannot be traced.

Successfully rebutting the presumption typically requires an application to the court, supported by witness evidence, and is neither quick nor guaranteed to succeed. It is a route of last resort, not a routine fix.

A photocopy or scanned copy of a will is not, by itself, a valid substitute for the missing original, since the law generally requires the original signed document to be proved. However, a copy can be important supporting evidence if you are trying to rebut the presumption of destruction, showing what the deceased's wishes were, even if it cannot simply be probated in place of the original.

If a solicitor drafted the will, they may hold a copy on file, along with attendance notes from when it was signed, which can also help establish what happened to the original. This is one reason using a solicitor or a service that retains records can be useful, though it does not remove the fundamental problem of a missing original.

If you are still alive and realise you cannot find your own signed will, do not spend a long time searching before acting, simply make a new one. This sidesteps the entire problem: a new, validly signed will replaces the missing one and there is no need to prove what happened to the original, since revoking an earlier will (found or not) is exactly what a new will does.

There is no legal requirement to formally 'cancel' a lost will before making a new one; a validly executed later will automatically revokes earlier ones, whether they can be found or not.

The straightforward fix is proper storage: keep your signed original somewhere secure and clearly identified, a fireproof box at home, with a solicitor, or through a dedicated will storage service, and make sure your executor knows exactly where it is. See our guide on where to store a will for a full comparison of options.

It is also worth telling more than one trusted person that a will exists and roughly where it is kept, so its location does not depend on a single person remembering correctly years later.