Marriage May No Longer Revoke Your Will

The current rule: marriage revokes your will

Under the Wills Act 1837, getting married (or forming a civil partnership) automatically revokes any will you have already made. Your existing will becomes invalid the moment you marry, as if it had never existed.

This surprises most people. If you made a careful, considered will, had it professionally drafted, and signed it with two witnesses — all of that is undone by the act of marrying. Unless you make a new will after the wedding, you die intestate, and your estate is distributed according to the intestacy rules rather than your wishes.

The rule was introduced at a time when marriage represented a fundamental change in a person's legal status — particularly for women, whose property largely passed to their husband on marriage. That rationale has long since disappeared, but the rule has survived.

Why is this a problem?

The automatic revocation rule causes real problems in practice:

People do not know about it

Most people simply do not realise that marriage revokes their will. Surveys consistently show that public awareness of this rule is very low. People assume — reasonably — that their will continues to apply after they get married.

Second marriages and later-life marriages

The rule is particularly dangerous for people who remarry later in life. Someone who made a will leaving assets to children from a first marriage, then remarried, may have unknowingly revoked that will. If they die without making a new one, their estate goes to their new spouse under the intestacy rules — potentially cutting out their children entirely.

It is inconsistent with divorce

The rules for divorce are different. When a marriage ends in divorce, the will is not revoked. Instead, any gift to the former spouse takes effect as if they had died on the date of the divorce. The will otherwise remains valid. The different treatment of marriage and divorce is hard to justify and confusing for the public.

What the draft Bill proposes

The Law Commission's draft Wills Bill — published in May 2025 — proposes abolishing the automatic revocation rule. Under the proposed new law, getting married or forming a civil partnership would have no effect on an existing will. Your will would simply continue to apply.

The draft Bill has not yet been introduced to Parliament, and there is no guarantee it will be enacted. But if it is, this change would be achieved by clause 8, which provides that a will can only be revoked in three ways:

1. By making a later valid will
2. By a written document of revocation that meets the formality requirements
3. By deliberately destroying the will with the intention of revoking it

Marriage and civil partnership are no longer on the list.

When would this change take effect?

The draft Bill has not yet been introduced to Parliament. It must be introduced, debated, potentially amended, and passed before any changes take effect. If it does become law, the abolition of the marriage revocation rule would apply to marriages and civil partnerships that take place on or after the date the relevant provisions come into force (two months after the Bill is passed).

Marriages that took place before that date would still be subject to the old rule. So if you married before any new Act comes into force and did not make a new will afterwards, your will may already have been revoked under the current law. A new Act would not retrospectively fix this.

What about divorce?

The draft Bill would keep the existing rule for divorce and dissolution of civil partnerships largely unchanged. If your marriage or civil partnership ends, any gift to your former spouse or partner takes effect as if they had died on the date the marriage ended. Any appointment of them as executor or trustee is similarly affected.

Your will is not revoked by divorce — it remains valid, but without the provisions relating to your former spouse. This is the current position, and the draft Bill would not change it.

What does this mean for you?

If you are not yet married

If you have made a will and plan to marry in the future, you should be aware that — under the current law — your marriage will revoke your will. You should make a new will after marrying, or make your current will "in contemplation of marriage" (which prevents revocation).

If the draft Bill is eventually enacted and in force by the time you marry, your existing will would continue to apply. But until any change in the law, the safe approach is to assume the current rules apply.

If you are already married

If you married without making a new will, your earlier will was likely revoked. This cannot be undone by the new Act. You should make a new will as soon as possible to ensure your wishes are recorded.

If you are making a will now

Whether or not the law changes, making a will now is the right thing to do. A properly executed will today would be valid under both the current and any proposed new law. If you later marry and a new Act is in force, your will would continue to apply. If the current law still applies when you marry, you would need to make a new one — but you would need to do that anyway under today's rules.

The bigger picture

The proposed abolition of the marriage revocation rule is one of several changes in the draft Wills Bill designed to bring the law into line with how people actually live. The rule made sense in 1837, when marriage transformed a person's legal identity. It makes no sense today.

If enacted, removing it would prevent a common and often devastating mistake — the accidental revocation of a carefully considered will, simply because the person got married. It is one of the clearest examples of how the proposed reforms would modernise the law in a practical, consumer-friendly way.

Until the law changes, make sure you know the current rules and plan accordingly. And if you have recently married without updating your will, contact us — we can help you put things right.