Bevan, who recently supervised the ‘first online remote execution of a will’, says there is ‘near uniform consensus within the legal profession’ that s 9 of the Wills Act 1837 insists on the physical presence of witnesses. Bevan writes: ‘It clearly does not.’
Strangely, s 9 is both more ancient and more modern than the 1837 Act. It has its origins in 1677 and its last iteration was substituted by the Administration of Justice Act 1982. Bevan’s argument traces a line of case authorities interpreting the statutory formalities for a valid will in light of various technological advances. He concludes that a statutory intervention to permit the remote witnessing of a will is not required because the law already allows this.
He concludes: ‘Given that video evidence can be now be adduced in criminal and civil trials it seems oddly anachronistic to trenchantly insist that this 1982 Act requires nothing less than a close physical attendance, when the provision itself is silent on the point and when not a single case authority supports that proposition.’
Bevan has written an open letter to Alex Chalk MP, at the Ministry of Justice, arguing the case for a practice direction to set good standards.
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