Après la signature de votre testament du Michigan

The original, and where it lives

During your lifetime you may deposit your will, in a sealed wrapper, with the probate court of the county where you live; the court keeps it and gives a certificate of deposit, and during your life it is delivered only to you or to a person you authorize in writing (MCL 700.2515). After a death, the person holding a will delivers it to the court with reasonable promptness, and one who neglects to do so without reasonable cause is liable for the damage (MCL 700.2516). Wherever you keep the original, tell your personal representative where it is.

How it was signed, and making it self-proved

An individual 18 or older with sufficient mental capacity may make a will (MCL 700.2501). A Michigan will is in writing, signed by the testator (or in the testator's name by another individual in the testator's conscious presence and by the testator's direction), and signed by at least two individuals who each witnessed the signing or the testator's acknowledgment of it; a will that does not meet those requirements is valid as a holographic will, witnessed or not, if it is dated and the testator's signature and the document's material portions are in the testator's handwriting (MCL 700.2502). A document not executed that way may still be treated as a will if its proponent proves by clear and convincing evidence that the decedent intended it as one (MCL 700.2503).

A will can be made self-proved — at signing or later — by the testator's acknowledgment and the witnesses' sworn statements before an officer authorized to administer oaths, in the form the statute sets out (MCL 700.2504). It spares your family a step when the will is probated.

Your personal representative

The person your probated will names has first priority for appointment as personal representative; the statute then ranks a surviving spouse who is a devisee, other devisees, the surviving spouse, other heirs and others (MCL 700.3203). On appointment the personal representative publishes a notice to creditors (MCL 700.3801), prepares an inventory within 91 days (MCL 700.3706), pays valid claims and distributes. Tell the person you named, and keep the choice current.

What changes a will

A will or part of one is revoked by a later will that revokes it expressly or by inconsistency, or by burning, tearing, canceling, obliterating or destroying it with the intent to revoke (MCL 700.2507). Michigan also adjusts a will for later events:

• Divorce or annulment: a revocable provision for the former spouse or the former spouse's relatives, and their nomination as personal representative or trustee, is revoked unless the will, a court order or a contract between the spouses provides otherwise (MCL 700.2807).
• Marriage: a spouse you marry after making the will receives at least an intestate share of the part not left to your earlier children who are not the spouse's, unless the will was made in contemplation of the marriage or says it is effective notwithstanding a later marriage (MCL 700.2301).
• A new child: a child born or adopted after the will and not provided for receives a share as MCL 700.2302 sets out, unless the will shows the omission was intentional.

A will and a trust together

A will governs only what passes through probate: property in your own name with no beneficiary designation, joint owner or trust title. A will may leave property to the trustee of a trust established during your lifetime, even a revocable one, if the will identifies the trust and its terms are in writing; the property becomes part of that trust (MCL 700.2511). Beneficiary designations and joint ownership pass outside the will, so they need to agree with it.

What happens at your death

The will is delivered to the probate court (MCL 700.2516) and a personal representative is appointed (MCL 700.3203), who publishes a notice to creditors (MCL 700.3801) and sends the inventory within 91 days (MCL 700.3706). A surviving spouse may elect to abide by the will or take one-half of the intestate share, reduced as the statute states, within 63 days after the later of the claims deadline and service of the inventory (MCL 700.2202); the spouse and children also have the homestead, family and exempt property allowances (MCL 700.2402, 700.2403, 700.2404). A small estate may pass without full administration (MCL 700.3982, 700.3983).

When a licensed Michigan attorney is the right next call

TrusteeClear explains and organizes; it does not review a will or say what is missing from it. Many people bring their will to a licensed Michigan attorney of their choosing to make it self-proved, to coordinate it with a trust and beneficiary designations, or to update it after a marriage, a divorce or a new child.