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Wassiya

For legal review

Review packet

Complete wills as this software would produce them, across the family shapes it will actually meet. Reviewing software is not something an attorney can usefully be asked to do; reviewing a finished will is daily work. So the ask is bounded: 7 documents, 16 clauses, one state record, and 8 questions.

Nothing here has been reviewed. Every clause carries an approval field that is currently empty, and until it is filled the software marks every document it produces as a draft and refuses to present it as signable. The companion page for religious review is the Corpus.

The sample wills below are reproduced in English, which is the language a court will construe them in and therefore the language they have to be reviewed in. The page around them is in your language.
Corrections and answers to hello@wassiya.org. Each clause and question has a short reference code beside it; naming one is enough.

Part one — the state record

Execution requirements are held as data, so that adding a state is authoring a record rather than writing code. Every field below was written from general knowledge and needs checking against the current statute.

Michigan — not approved, not served
Minimum age18
Witnesses required2
Interested witnessno-effect
Notary required for the willno
Self-proving availableyes
Self-proving text on fileno — must be supplied
Property regimecommon-law
Elective shareA surviving spouse may elect against the will and take a statutory share instead. The calculation is set by statute and can substantially displace the distribution written here.
CitationMCL 700.2502 (execution); MCL 700.2504 (self-proved wills)
Approved bynobody
Review due—
  • Michigan follows the Estates and Protected Individuals Code, its enactment of the Uniform Probate Code.
  • Witnesses must sign within a reasonable time after witnessing the signing or the testator's acknowledgment of it.
  • Not a community property state, so the will governs the whole of the testator's own property.
Texas — not approved, not served
Minimum age18
Witnesses required2
Interested witnesspurges-gift
Notary required for the willno
Self-proving availableyes
Self-proving text on fileno — must be supplied
Property regimecommunity
Elective shareTexas has no elective share. A surviving spouse cannot claim a statutory portion against the will, because community property already gives them half of what was acquired during the marriage. Homestead rights and an exempt property allowance can still take priority over the will.
CitationTex. Est. Code § 251.051 (execution); § 251.101–104 (self-proved wills); § 201.003 (community property on death)
Approved bynobody
Review due—
  • A community property state. The will controls the deceased's separate property and one half of the community property, and no more.
  • Witnesses must be at least fourteen years old — lower than most states, but use adults.
  • A bequest to a witness is void unless the will can be proved by other disinterested witnesses, so choose witnesses who inherit nothing.
  • Texas allows independent administration, which makes probate substantially cheaper and faster where the will provides for it. Ask counsel whether the will should request it expressly.
  • The surviving spouse's homestead right can allow them to occupy the residence for life regardless of who inherits it.
California — not approved, not served
Minimum age18
Witnesses required2
Interested witnesspurges-gift
Notary required for the willno
Self-proving availableno
Self-proving text on fileno — must be supplied
Property regimecommunity
Elective shareCalifornia has no elective share. A surviving spouse cannot claim a statutory portion against the will, because community property already gives them half of what was acquired during the marriage. A probate homestead and family allowance can still take priority over the will.
CitationCal. Prob. Code § 6110 (execution); § 100 (community property on death)
Approved bynobody
Review due—
  • A community property state. The will controls the deceased's separate property and one half of the community property, and no more.
  • A gift to a witness raises a presumption that it was procured by duress, menace, fraud or undue influence, and the witness must rebut it. Choose witnesses who inherit nothing.
  • California recognises handwritten wills, which this service does not produce and which should not be relied on as a substitute.
  • Quasi-community property — assets acquired elsewhere that would have been community property if acquired in California — is treated as community property on death. Anyone who has moved to California should raise this with counsel.

Part two — the clause inventory

Every article the assembler can emit. A clause marked as a wish is one the court is not asked to enforce; the distinction is load-bearing, because the religious content of this will is deliberately confined to those.

ReferenceArticleKindApproved
exordiumDeclarationoperativeno
intentStatement of intenta wishno
communityCommunity propertyoperativeno
debtsDebts and expenses of administrationoperativeno
burialFuneral and buriala wishno
wasiyyahBequestsoperativeno
residuaryDistribution of the residueoperativeno
guardianGuardian of minor childrenoperativeno
standbyImmediate care of my childrenoperativeno
custodianProperty left to a childoperativeno
executorPersonal representativeoperativeno
powersPowers of the personal representativeoperativeno
survivorshipSurvivorshipoperativeno
afterbornChildren born or adopted after this willoperativeno
nocontestNo contestoperativeno
attestationAttestationoperativeno

Part three — sample wills

Printed, each sample below repeats Specimen — not a will on every page, alongside the draft watermark, so it cannot be mistaken for a will to sign.

S01Married, with children

married-with-children
What to look at
  • The ordinary case, and by far the most common.
  • A wife's eighth alongside descendants; the residue divided two to one between son and daughters.
  • Whether the residuary article is unambiguous where several people share one fraction.

S02Young family, guardian nominated

minor-children-guardian
What to look at
  • The guardianship article, and whether the request that children be raised in the faith is safely framed as a request.
  • Whether nominating a guardian who is also the personal representative creates any difficulty.
  • The interaction between the guardianship nomination and the court's own discretion.

S03Married, no children, both parents living

no-descendants
What to look at
  • Al-Umariyyatan: the mother takes a third of the remainder after the spouse rather than a third of the estate.
  • A husband's half where no descendant survives.
  • Whether the residuary article reads correctly when the father takes as residuary heir.

S04A predeceased son's children, provided for by bequest

orphaned-grandchildren
What to look at
  • Grandchildren excluded from the fixed shares by a surviving son, and provided for through the bequest instead.
  • Whether a bequest to a person excluded from the residue is clearly severable from it.
  • The lapse provision on each bequest.

S05Charitable bequests reduced to the permitted third

bequests-at-the-cap
What to look at
  • Bequests asking for more than a third, reduced proportionally by the assembler before the article is written.
  • Whether the reduced fractions are stated in a way a personal representative can act on.
  • Whether the article makes clear that the bequests come out before the residue.

S06An unmarried woman with no children

unmarried-woman
What to look at
  • A testator with no spouse and no descendants, where the parents take everything that passes by inheritance, which is all but the fifth she leaves by bequest: the father takes the residue and excludes her brother and sister.
  • That nothing about mahr, guardianship or community property appears — a will should not contain articles about a marriage that never happened.
  • Whether the will reads correctly when the mother takes a sixth rather than a third: two siblings survive, and they reduce her share even though the father excludes them from inheriting.

S07No spouse, no children — siblings inherit

siblings-only
What to look at
  • Siblings as residuary heirs beside the mother: after her sixth, the brother takes twice the portion of each sister, and nothing is left over to return.
  • Whether the residuary article is comprehensible when the fractions have unusual denominators.
  • The no-contest article where the beneficiaries are siblings rather than descendants.

Part four — questions

These are not demonstrated by any single sample above.

Q01Does the statement of intent article create any risk that the will is read as incorporating religious law by reference?

The whole design rests on the operative clauses being self-contained arithmetic, with the religious reasoning confined to a preamble that disposes of nothing. If that preamble undermines the position, it should be cut.

Q02Does distributing two shares to a son against one to a daughter invite a challenge, and does the recitation of intent adequately address it?

Testamentary freedom permits unequal distribution, but the pattern is visible and could attract an undue-influence claim.

Q03Is the after-born children article effective in Michigan, or does it need to be replaced by reliance on the pretermitted-heir statute?

The fractions are computed on the day of signing, so a child born afterwards is the most likely way for this will to go stale.

Q04Is the no-contest article enforceable as drafted, and is the probable-cause carve-out correctly stated?

Enforceability varies, and the carve-out language was written generically rather than to a specific statute.

Q05What is the current statutory self-proving affidavit, verbatim?

It is deliberately absent. It is the one part of a will that genuinely cannot be paraphrased, and the packet currently tells the user to ask an attorney for it.

Q06Is the position correct that Michigan does not void a gift to an interested witness, and should the packet still advise against it?

The signing packet's wording changes with the answer, and it is the step where self-prepared wills most often fail.

Q07Is the elective-share warning accurate for Michigan, and is it worded strongly enough?

A surviving spouse electing against the will unravels the entire distribution, and no clause in the will can prevent it.

Q08Does producing this document, with these disclaimers, constitute the unauthorized practice of law in Michigan?

This gates whether the product can launch at all, and the disclaimers should be reviewed alongside the document rather than separately.