IOWA LEGAL INFORMATION

Last Will information from the Iowa Bar Association

Link to the Iowa Statutes online which contain the portion of the Probate Code dealing with last wills, see Sections 633.264, et al.

American Bar Association Guide to Wills and Estates

American Bar Association, Estate Planning

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Selected Iowa Statutes

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• Children born or adopted after execution of will. When a testator fails to provide in the testator's will for any of the testator's children born to or adopted by the testator after the making of the testator's last will, such child, whether born before or after the testator's death, shall receive a share in the estate of the testator equal in value to that which the child would have received under section 633.211, 633.212, or 633.219, whichever section or sections are applicable, if the testator had died intestate, unless it appears from the will that such omission was intentional.
  Iowa Code 633.267.
• Effect of divorce or dissolution. If after making a will the testator is divorced or the marriage is dissolved, all provisions in the will in favor of the testator's spouse, including but not limited to dispositions, appointments relating to property, and nominations to serve in any fiduciary or representative capacity, are thereby revoked. In the event the testator and spouse remarry each other, the provisions of the will revoked by the divorce or dissolution of marriage shall be reinstated unless otherwise revoked by the testator.
  Iowa Code 633.271.
• Formal Execution. All wills and codicils, except as provided in section 633.283, to be valid, must be in writing, signed by the testator, or by some person in the testator's presence and by the testator's express direction writing the testator's name thereto, and declared by the testator to be the testator's will, and witnessed, at the testator's request, by two competent persons who signed as witnesses in the presence of the testator and in the presence of each other; provided, however, that the validity of the execution of any will or instrument which was executed prior to January 1, 1964, shall be determined by the law in effect immediately prior to said date.
  Iowa Code 633.279.1.
• Self-proved will. An attested will may be made self-proved at the time of its execution, or at any subsequent date, by the acknowledgment thereof by the testator and the affidavits of the witnesses, each made before a person authorized to administer oaths and take acknowledgments under the laws of this state, and evidenced by such person's certificate, under seal, attached or annexed to the will, in form and content substantially as follows:
  
  Affidavit
  
  State of . . . . . . )
  
  County of . . . . . . ) ss
  
  We, the undersigned, . . . . . . , . . . . . . and . . . . . . , the testator and the witnesses, respectively, whose names are signed to the attached or foregoing instrument, being first duly sworn, declare to the undersigned authority that said instrument is the testator's will and that the testator willingly signed and executed such instrument, or expressly directed another to sign the same in the presence of the witnesses, as a free and voluntary act for the purposes therein expressed; that said witnesses, and each of them, declare to the undersigned authority that such will was executed and acknowledged by the testator as the testator's will in their presence and that they, in the testator's presence, at the testator's request, and in the presence of each other, did subscribe their names thereto as attesting witnesses on the date of the date of such will; and that the testator, at the time of the execution of such instrument, was of full age and of sound mind and that the witnesses were sixteen years of age or older and otherwise competent to be witnesses.
  
  __________________________
  Testator
  
  __________________________
  Witness
  
  __________________________
  Witness
  
  Subscribed, sworn and acknowledged before me by . . . . . . , the testator; and subscribed and sworn before me by . . . . . and . . . . . , witnesses, this . . . . day of . . . . . . (month), . . . (year).
  
  

            __________________________________                     
                 Notary Public, or other officer
                                                                           
   (Seal)        authorized to take and certify
                                                           
                 acknowledgments and administer oaths

  
  A self-proved will shall constitute proof of due execution of such instrument as required by section 633.293 and may be admitted to probate without testimony of witnesses.
  Iowa Code 633.279.2.
• Competency of witnesses. Any person who is sixteen years of age, or older, and who is competent to be a witness generally in this state, may act as an attesting witness to a will.
  Iowa Code 633.280.
• Interest of witnesses. No will is invalidated because attested by an interested witness; but any interested witness shall, unless the will is also attested by two competent and disinterested witnesses, forfeit so much of the provisions therein made for the interested witness as in the aggregate exceeds in value, as of the date of the decedent's death, that which the interested witness would have received had the testator died intestate. No attesting witness is interested unless the witness is devised or bequeathed some portion of the testator's estate.
  Iowa Code 633.281.

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