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The original, and where it lives

The signed original is the document a circuit court admits to probate; a copy is not the same. During your lifetime you, or your attorney, may lodge the will for safekeeping with the clerk of the circuit court where you reside: the clerk gives a receipt, seals, numbers and endorses the envelope with your name and the date, indexes it by testator and executor, and keeps it unopened until it is returned to you or your nominee on your written request, or until your death (Va. Code § 64.2-409).

An attorney, bank or trust company that has held a client's will for at least seven years without knowing whether the client is alive may also lodge it with the clerk (Va. Code § 64.2-409). Wherever the original is kept, tell your executor where it is.

How it was signed, and proving it

No will is valid unless it is in writing and signed by the testator, or by another person in the testator's presence and by the testator's direction, in a manner making it manifest that the name is intended as a signature. A will wholly in the testator's handwriting is valid if its handwriting and signature are proved by at least two disinterested witnesses; any other will is valid only if the testator signs or acknowledges it in the presence of at least two competent witnesses, present at the same time, who subscribe it in the testator's presence (Va. Code § 64.2-403).

A will may be made self-proved, when signed or later, by the testator's acknowledgment and the witnesses' affidavits before an officer authorized to administer oaths, evidenced by the officer's certificate attached in substantially the form the statute prints (Va. Code § 64.2-452). Where a document was not executed with the formalities, its proponent may still establish by clear and convincing evidence that the decedent intended it as the will, in a circuit court proceeding filed within one year of the death (Va. Code § 64.2-404).

Your executor

The will is offered for probate in the circuit court of the county or city where you had a known place of residence (Va. Code § 64.2-443). Your executor qualifies before the court or its clerk, taking the oath and giving bond; if the will names no executor, or the executor refuses, fails to give bond, dies, resigns or is removed, the court or clerk may grant administration with the will annexed to a residual or substantial legatee or that person's designee, or after 30 days to one entitled without a will (Va. Code § 64.2-500).

A personal representative gives written notice of the probate within 30 days to the spouse, the heirs and the will's beneficiaries (Va. Code § 64.2-508), files a list of heirs (Va. Code § 64.2-509), returns an inventory to the Commissioner of Accounts within four months (Va. Code § 64.2-1300(A)) and accounts within 16 months of qualification (Va. Code § 64.2-1304). A nonresident individual may serve, filing a consent to service and giving bond with surety unless a resident cofiduciary qualifies or surety is waived (Va. Code § 64.2-1426).

What changes a will

A will speaks at death, so what it gives depends on what you own then and how it is titled. A later will or a codicil executed with the same formalities (Va. Code § 64.2-403) can change it; events such as a marriage, a divorce, a birth or a death can affect how it reads, and a beneficiary designation or a joint account passes outside it. Review the will when your family, your assets or your residence changes.

Your health care wishes and an agent for health care decisions belong in an advance directive, signed before two witnesses (Va. Code § 54.1-2983); the Code prints a suggested form (Va. Code § 54.1-2984).

A will and a trust together

A will may create a trust that takes effect at death (Va. Code § 64.2-719), or leave property to a trust you created during life. A trustee named in a will qualifies and gives bond before the circuit court or clerk where the will was probated before acting (Va. Code § 64.2-1401), returns an inventory to the Commissioner of Accounts within four months after first receiving assets (Va. Code § 64.2-1300(C)) and accounts each calendar year on or before May 1 (Va. Code § 64.2-1306) — unless a will probated on or after July 1, 1993 waives the trustee's accounts and the trustee gives each adult current beneficiary the 90-day notice (Va. Code § 64.2-1307).

Property already titled to a living trust passes under the trust's terms without probate; property left to it by the will passes through the estate first.

What happens at your death

The will is probated in the circuit court (Va. Code § 64.2-443), with a probate tax of 10 cents for every $100 of the estate's value over $15,000 (Va. Code § 58.1-1712), a return of values (Va. Code § 58.1-1714) and any local probate tax of one-third of the state tax (Va. Code § 58.1-1718). The personal representative may publish a notice to creditors, claims then due by the later of at least six months after the first publication or 90 days after a copy reaches a known claimant (Va. Code § 64.2-508.1).

Where the personal probate estate is $75,000 or less, a holder may pay a small asset to a designated successor on the successors' affidavit at least 60 days after the death (Va. Code § 64.2-601). A surviving spouse may elect 50 percent of the marital-property portion of the augmented estate (Va. Code § 64.2-308.3) and is entitled to the family allowance, exempt property and the homestead allowance (Va. Code §§ 64.2-309, 64.2-310, 64.2-311). Without a will, the estate passes by intestate succession (Va. Code §§ 64.2-200, 64.2-201).

When a licensed Virginia attorney is the right next call

Whether a will was validly signed, whether an event changed how it reads, how it fits with a trust and beneficiary designations, and who should serve as executor are questions a licensed Virginia attorney of your choosing answers. In Virginia only licensed attorneys and law firms may advertise to prepare wills (Va. Code § 64.2-402); TrusteeClear explains the statute and organizes the record, and does not prepare or review wills.