Filling in a will form yourself? Five checks that decide whether it survives probate

A will drafted from a template can be admitted to probate in Texas without anyone raising an eyebrow, and thousands are, every year, in county courts that see far worse. The document does not fail because it was cheap. It fails on the signing page, or it fails because the estate contains something the form never asked about, and both failures surface at the worst moment, when the person who could have explained the intent is gone. What follows is what a careful reader checks before deciding the form is enough.

1. The signing page, and the affidavit that keeps witnesses out of court

An attested will in Texas needs the testator's signature and two credible witnesses over fourteen who sign in the testator's presence. That is the whole requirement, and a notary is not part of it. The notary matters for the separate thing bolted onto the end: the self-proving affidavit, sworn by the testator and both witnesses before a notary, which lets the court admit the will without tracking down a witness years later to testify. Skip it and the will is still valid, but somebody has to find those two people, or prove handwriting instead, and that costs money.

Texas also recognizes a holographic will, wholly in the testator's handwriting and signed, with no witnesses at all. It is a genuine option and a poor default, because a half-typed, half-handwritten page qualifies as neither one thing nor the other. A careful reader checks which of the two documents is actually in front of them, then checks that the affidavit language names a notary and leaves room for a seal.

2. Who watches you sign, and what a gift to a witness costs

Templates rarely warn that a witness should not be a beneficiary. Under Texas law a bequest to a witness is void unless the will can be proved by another credible witness, or the gift is corroborated, and the practical result is a daughter who witnessed her mother's will and then had to litigate her own inheritance. Neighbors, coworkers, and the staff at the bank are safer choices than family. The same section of the signing page should name an independent executor, serving without bond, with the phrase directing that no further action occur in the probate court beyond probating the will and returning an inventory. That sentence is the difference between an independent administration and a supervised one with a court order for every check written.

3. A second marriage, where the form has no vocabulary for it

Blended families are where generic drafting does the most quiet damage. Texas is a community property state, so the house bought during the second marriage, the retirement account funded during it, and the separate property brought into it are governed by three different rules, and a form that says "I leave everything to my wife" does not distinguish them. Add the surviving spouse's homestead right, which can let a stepparent occupy the house for life while the children hold the remainder, and you get an outcome nobody chose. A drafted will can create a life estate deliberately, or a trust, or divide by asset rather than by percentage.

4. Mineral interests and a closely held business

Royalty interests and small business shares are the two assets that turn a simple estate into a slow one. Minerals sit in the county where the land is, not where the decedent lived, so a will admitted in Harris County still needs certified copies filed in the county of the tract before an operator will change a division order. A specific devise of the mineral interest, naming the counties, saves months. An LLC or family business brings its own layer, because the company agreement or buy-sell agreement may restrict transfer at death, and a will that contradicts it loses. The Internal Revenue Service oversees the estate's own tax obligations, including the employer identification number an executor obtains before opening an estate account, which is one more reason the business paperwork and the will need to agree.

5. Medicaid, recovery, and a beneficiary who receives benefits

If the testator has received long-term care benefits, the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program may have a claim against the probate estate, and how the house passes affects whether that claim reaches it. If a beneficiary receives needs-based benefits, an outright gift can end them, where a properly drafted supplemental needs trust holds the same money without counting as a resource. No template asks either question. An attorney does, in the first fifteen minutes, and that conversation is usually the one that pays for the engagement.

The honest test is not price. It is whether the estate contains a second marriage, a mineral file, an ownership interest, or a beneficiary on benefits, and whether the signing page carries two disinterested witnesses, a notary, and the independent executor language. Where none of those apply, a carefully executed form does what it says.