Not out of date — gone.
Marriage usually revokes your will — automatically, entirely, and without telling you — unless the will was made in contemplation of that marriage or civil partnership.
If you married after signing your will and it wasn't made with that marriage in mind, you may have no will at all, and the intestacy formula is quietly standing in for it. This is the sharpest trap in the whole list, and it has its own full guide: Does marriage revoke a will?
Divorce is the opposite kind of edit: it doesn't revoke the will, it strikes your ex from it as if they'd died — and separation without divorce changes nothing at all. Full detail on both: the marriage & divorce guide
What changed — and what your will silently gets wrong.
Guardianship is the urgent half — no will, or a will without a named guardian, leaves the decision to a court. New children don't automatically share in gifts worded around named individuals either.
A specific gift of a property you no longer own simply fails; a new one may pass by survivorship rules you've never checked. Joint tenants vs tenants in common
The will still works legally, but somebody must apply to administer it, at the worst time. A working executor is the difference between a plan and a document.
Depending on the wording, their gift may fail, fall into the residue, or pass in ways you never intended.
However long you're together, an unmarried partner inherits nothing under intestacy, and nothing under a will signed before they existed in your life. The will is the only route that protects them.
The will keeps paying the person you stopped speaking to years ago. Wills don't follow the relationship — only the wording.
A business, an inheritance, a serious change in what you own — gifts sized for an old life can misfire in a new one, and growth can carry you across the inheritance-tax threshold unplanned.
Foreign assets and foreign residence can put parts of your estate under rules your England & Wales will doesn't govern. This one is a genuine "get professional advice" trigger.
Update, codicil, or new will?
For almost everyone, a new will is the answer. Codicils — amendments executed with the same formalities as a will — still exist, but a fresh will is cleaner: one document, one execution, one clear revocation.
A codicil adds a second document that can be lost, contradicted, or challenged. It needs the same execution formalities as a will — so there's little saved for the risk it carries.
A fresh will (£149, or £229 mirror) revokes the old one cleanly and starts the clock true again — one document, one execution, one clear revocation.
Start a new will→Never amend a will by writing on it — handwriting on an executed will ranges from legally void to actively dangerous.
Or stop doing this check manually.
Every trigger on this page shares one feature: on the day it happens, your will is the last thing on your mind. That's the design problem Will Watch exists for — £8.99/yr, included free for 12 months with every Valoren will: a structured annual prompt that walks the trigger list against your actual year and tells you update or stands. Not a subscription that bills quietly — a check that answers loudly.
Make a will — Will Watch included→When to update, questions answered.
Your will was true the day you signed it. Find out if it still is.