I have pdfs of all the legal documents that I create and which are signed. They are far from useless in practice. I usually take photocopies as well. The rules for proving lost wills take care of completely missing wills so that copies can be taken into account. I am not a probate practitioner but many on here are and may be able to explain the practical issues involved. Does seem excessive concern to me.
The original will has a unique status but copies are all that is needed for most if not all purposes. Third parties who are required to act on the provisions of the will require sight of the probate so they can rely of the authority of the executors who have proved the will. They neither need nor seek to see the will and anyway after probate it is a public domain document (unless you are the Duke of Edinburgh etc). Electronic documents are all the rage and in some jurisdictions this includes wills (which were permitted to be signed remotely in the UK during the pandemic). A fully electronic will must be a future possibility if similar safeguards attaching to other legal electronic documents can be applied to the satisfaction of the powers that be.
"In Cooper and another v Chapman and others (Re estate of Steven Philip Cooper probate) [2022] EWHC 1000 (Ch), the High Court considered the standard formalities for execution of a will as set out in section 9 of the Wills Act 1837 and the presumption that a missing will has been revoked by destruction where there was only a computer version of the will.
In a dispute about a will drafted on the deceased testatorās computer where the executed will could not be found, the High Court (HHJ Klein) held that:
The testator had executed a will in accordance with section 9 of the Wills Act 1837.
The will was in the terms of the draft of the will which was in evidence.
In the absence of an executed original will, it should not be presumed to have been destroyed by the testator with the intention of revoking it.
The decision was based on HHJ Kleinās evaluation of the facts. In particular, he found that the witnesses to the execution of the will were credible and the period after the execution of the will did not support the presumption that the testator had destroyed the will with the intention of revoking it. In arriving at the latter conclusion, the judge took into account the effect of the testatorās illness and lifestyle, and the fact he probably continued to wish to make provision for his partner who benefited under the will (for example, he made substantial gifts to her after executing the will)."
This is an extract from materials available to me for research though as I say I am not an expert on the practical side. There would probably be no need to obtain a court decision if no one wanted to challenge the draft and the fact of due execution.
Peter
I sincerely hope that your beliefs never have to be tested in Court, as I have no doubt that your rationale would not be accepted, with unfortunate consequences - potentially for your brother as well as yourself.
Perhaps Jackās helpful contribution may have given you cause to ponder, but may I summarise the two main errors in your proposition.
A will can be physically destroyed without it being revoked - in other words it continues to exist [unless it is clear that the destruction was intended by the testator to revoke it]. Therefore in the example given you would not KNOW [sic] which clone was which.
Copies can and often have been accepted by the Court if the original is unavailable [again, unless it seems that the deceased had destroyed the will intending to revoke it]. So there is no need to complicate matters with a ācloneā.
I appreciate that to some in the IT universe lawyers may seem hopelessly outdated, but we have been dealing with practical problems such as missing wills for many generations so please do not dismiss us without thought.
It also illustrates the importance of the identity of witnesses who can be traced and give evidence, if able to, rather than two random choices, which suffices for the validity of the will but may be hard to trace even if the Will contains the usual attestation clause, Strictly no particular form of attestation is necessary for validity under s9(1) but a typical clause will give the full names of the witnesses, their current address, and their occupation. I often dispense with the last but it might be useful for tracing if it is distinctive. Without such a clause the witnesses or one of them will have to provide a statement of truth or affidavit confirming due execution; with it, if the will seems on its face to have been validly executed, the strongest evidence is required to show that it was not validly executed eg the Sherrington case Sherrington & Ors v Sherrington [2005] EWCA Civ 326 (22 March 2005) at para 41.
Thank you for your detailed responses to spell out the errors in my thinking. Much of it goes way above my head, so I bow to your knowledge and experience.
Thereās lots to read online about wills and probate, and 99% of it says that copies of wills are not acceptable, only the original signed will can be used. I guess that (as with everything else one Googles) this canāt be taken as gospel truth but is intended as guidance if one wants to avoid difficulties when applying for probate.
Itās always the interesting exceptions which catch oneās attention. But there must be a vast number of cases which donāt adhere 100% to established practice which never get noticed because nobody contests them. For example, if a superseded but otherwise valid ālastā will gets presented for probate who would know about the later will if it never comes to light (because no living person knows about it, perhaps)?
Similarly, if either version of a cloned will got presented upon the testatorās death, who would know it had an identical twin? There would only be cause for question if both versions were presented. If one version disappeared without trace and nobody knew it had ever existed then āno harm, no foulā!
Judging by the discussion in this thread better minds than mine have thought that cloning wills is a good idea, and they have been persuaded otherwise by other contributors. So I guess Iāll have to find some place which can store a single version safely and just be left scratching my head as to why two identical things are not identical in the legal world, and why if you canāt prove which of the identical things was created last then neither of them is valid. Mental.