\u201cIs a Will signed digitally using an electronic signature valid?\u201d and \u201ccan I have my Will signed with my witnesses watching on Skype?\u201d are questions that have arisen since the Global Pandemic hit.<\/p>\n
Section 6 (2) of the Wills Act requires every Will to \u2018be signed at the foot or end\u2019 of the Will by the will maker. Also the signature has to be made or acknowledged by the will maker as the signature to his\/her Will in the presence of two or more witnesses.<\/p>\n
What does \u2018\u2018be signed\u2019 by the will maker mean? Can he or she sign it digitally?<\/p>\n
The ETA introduced electronic signatures in Singapore. Under Section 8 of the ETA where a rule of law requires a signature that requirement is satisfied if an electronic signature is used.<\/p>\n
Nowadays with the ETA you can have a contract signed electronically or digitally and it would be considered legal and valid under Singapore.<\/p>\n
Does the ETA allow you to sign your Will electronically or digitally then?<\/p>\n
So if you sign your Will digitally using an electronic signature the Will is NOT valid.<\/p>\n
Section 4 of the ETA expressively excludes the ETA from operating in certain circumstances. The first of these circumstances is \u201cThe creation or execution of a will\u201d.<\/p>\n
So you cannot use a digital signature to create a Will or to execute (ie sign) a Will. To be valid your Will must be signed by you manually by hand.<\/p>\n
If you can\u2019t sign a document digitally can a Will be made with your witnesses watching you on skype, zoom, etc sign your Will?<\/p>\n
The Wills Act requires you and your witnesses to sign your will \u201cin the presence\u201d of each other. What does \u2018in the presence\u2019 mean?<\/p>\n
Does it mean your witnesses must all be physically present when you sign your will?<\/p>\n
The Wills Act does not actually define what \u2018In the presence\u2019 means.<\/p>\n
There are several genuine difficulties that may lead to a court refusing to accept as valid a Will that has been witnessed by\u00a0 remotely via skype etc.<\/p>\n
One serious difficulty would be that a witness can never be certain that the document that is later received by a witness is in fact the same one that the witness saw being signed by the will maker.<\/p>\n
We plan to look into this issue in greater detail in a later article.<\/p>\n
For now, it is best to treat \u2018in the presence\u2019 to mean \u2018in the physical <\/u>presence\u2019.<\/p>\n
Certainly prior to the internet the commonly understood meaning of \u2018in the presence\u2019 would be \u2018in the physical presence\u2019. It is best to err on the side of caution and have your Will signed in the physical presence of your witnesses.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, you might find your estate being eaten up by legal fees working out if a Will witnessed remotely is valid or not.<\/p>\n
Sept 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIs a Will signed digitally using an electronic signature valid?\u201d and \u201ccan I have my Will signed with my witnesses watching on Skype?\u201d are questions that have arisen since the Global Pandemic hit. Wills Act requirements Section 6 (2) of the Wills Act requires every Will to \u2018be signed at the foot or end\u2019 of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[105,104,106],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-will-making-tips","tag-electronic-signing-of-will","tag-will-signed-digitally","tag-witness-will-signing-remotely"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions\/877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}