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ARKANSAS LEGAL INFORMATION
Last Will and Testament Statutes
Link to the Arkansas Statutes online, See Title 28, Section 28-24-101, et al. which contains the Probate Code.
American Bar Association Guide to Wills and Estates
American Bar Association, Estate Planning
Selected Arkansas Statutes
- Who may make a will. Any person of sound mind eighteen (18) years of age or older may make a will. Arkansas Code Section 28-25-101.
- Witnesses.
- Any person, eighteen (18) years of age or older, competent to be witness generally in this state may act as attesting witness to a will.
- No will is invalidated because attested by an interested witness, but an interested witness, unless the will is also attested by two (2) qualified disinterested witnesses, shall forfeit so much of the provision therein made for him as in the aggregate exceeds in value, as of the date of the testator's death, what he would have received had the testator died intestate.
- No attesting witness is interested unless the will gives to him some beneficial interest by way of devise.
Arkansas Code Section 28-25-102.
Note: In the State of Arkansas, the witnesses to your Last Will should not also be beneficiaries of your estate.
- Execution of a Will Generally.
(a) The execution of a will, other than holographic, must be by the signature of the testator and of at least two (2) witnesses.
(b) The testator shall declare to the attesting witnesses that the instrument is his will and either:
- Himself sign; or
- Acknowledge his signature already made; or
- Sign by mark, his name being written near it and witnessed by a person who writes his own name as witness to the signature; or
- At his discretion and in his presence have someone else sign his name for him. The person so signing shall write his own name and state that he signed the testator's name at the request of the testator; and
- In any of the above cases, the signature must be at the end of the instrument and the act must be done in the presence of two (2) or more attesting witnesses.
(c) The attesting witnesses must sign at the request and in the presence of the testator.
Arkansas Code Section 28-25-103.
- Revocation of Wills.
(a) A will or any part thereof is revoked:
- By a subsequent will which revokes the prior will or part expressly or by inconsistency; or
- By being burned, torn, cancelled, obliterated, or destroyed, with the intent and for the purpose of revoking it by the testator or by another person in his presence and by his direction.
(b) If, after making a will, the testator is divorced or the marriage of the testator is annulled, all provisions in the will in favor of the testator's spouse so divorced are revoked. With these exceptions, no will or any part thereof shall be revoked by any change in the circumstances, condition, or marital status of the testator; subject, however, to the provisions of § 28-39-401.
Arkansas Code Section 28-25-109.
- After-acquired property. Property acquired by the testator after the making of his will shall pass as if title to the property was vested in him at the time of making the will, unless the contrary intention manifestly appears in the will. Arkansas Code Section 28-26-102.
- Testamentary additions to trusts. (a) A will may validly devise or bequeath property to the trustee of a trust established or to be established (i) during the testator's lifetime by the testator, by the testator and some other person, or by some other person including a funded or unfunded life insurance trust, although the trustor has reserved any or all rights of ownership of the insurance contracts, or (ii) at the testator's death by the testator's devise to the trustee, if the trust is identified in the testator's will and its terms are set forth in a written instrument, other than a will, executed before, concurrently with, or after the execution of the testator's will or in another individual's will if that other individual has predeceased the testator, regardless of the existence, size, or character of the corpus of the trust. The devise or bequest is not invalid because the trust is amendable or revocable, or because the trust was amended after the execution of the will or the testator's death. Arkansas Code Section 28-27-101.
Library of Informational Legal Articles
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