Checking your own will? Right place. Someone died and the will looks out of date? → Who inherits with no will · What to do when someone dies
The rule is Victorian, deliberate, and still in force: marriage is treated as so fundamental a change that Parliament decided an old will should not survive it. The Wills Act 1837 presumes your old arrangements — made in a different life — shouldn't bind the new one. The law's answer is blunt: revoke everything, let the new spouse be protected by intestacy until a new will is made. Reasonable in 1837; in 2026 it silently cancels the wills of people who assume documents last.
The revocation is automatic and invisible — no letter arrives, nothing is stamped void.
A will survives your marriage only if it says, in effect: I am making this will expecting to marry this person. The expectation must appear from the will and relate to the particular marriage — a general "if I ever marry" hope isn't enough. This is standard drafting for engaged couples: if a wedding is planned, the will should be written in contemplation of it — otherwise you'll be signing twice.
Divorce does not revoke your will — it edits it, in one specific way. From the final order, the will operates as if your former spouse had died on that date — gifts to them fail, their appointment as executor fails, and the rest of the will stands.
Trap 1 — until the final order, a separated spouse still inherits under the will (and on intestacy). Separation alone changes nothing.
Trap 2 — after the order, the will's fallback provisions take over which may now name the wrong people entirely.
The pension nomination behaves differently again — divorce cannot be assumed to touch it either way → who gets your pension when you die.
Marriage is the only event that revokes a will outright — but it has company. Nobody re-reads their will after each of these. That's a monitoring job, not a memory job — it's what Will Watch is for: £8.99/yr, with 12 months included as part of every Valoren will.
Revokes a prior will outright — unless it was made in contemplation of that specific marriage.
Doesn't revoke the will — edits it. Gifts to the ex-spouse and their executor role fail; the rest stands.
A will made before a child can simply not mention them at all.
An executor or beneficiary who died before you leaves the will's fallback provisions in charge.
Joint tenancy vs tenants in common changes who the property answers to — sometimes outside the will entirely.
A different legal system may now have a claim on how those assets pass.
Informational, not legal advice, and covers England & Wales only — Scotland's rules on revocation by marriage differ materially.
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