The signature under the will may be illegible

A will without a signature is not valid. But what if the signature is barely legible? How clearly does a testator have to write?

Cologne (dpa / tmn) - A will can be handwritten or drawn up at a notary. The notarial will must also be signed by the testator. However, the signature does not have to be suitable to identify the testator. In the event of a weakening due to illness, it may be sufficient for the testator to try to write his family name.

Even if the signature consists of a letter followed by a meandering line, it can be expressed that you want the notarial declaration as your own, decided the Higher Regional Court of Cologne (Az .: 2 Wx 102/20). This is reported by the Working Group on Inheritance Law of the German Bar Association (DAV).

The appointment of the final heirs could be changed

In the negotiated case, a woman and her husband mutually pledged themselves to be sole heirs in a notarized will. They have appointed the husband's siblings to be the heirs of the last deceased. The final heir should be freely changeable for the survivor.

The wife made use of it after the death of her husband and made her great cousin her sole heir. After the wife's death, however, the husband's siblings applied for a certificate of inheritance because the notarial record had not been completely signed by the testator.

Signature does not have to identify the testator

Wrong, judge the judges. The signature documents that the parties involved can be attributed their declarations. Their identifiability, however, is not the purpose of the signature. It is true that simply signing with the first name is not sufficient, since the signature with the first name alone cannot be used to determine with certainty whether the signatory really wants to vouch for the authenticity of the documented will.

Here, on the other hand, the testator has at least started to write her family name, which is reflected in the document in the "K" and the subsequent winding line.

This suggests that the testator intended to have her surname written down in full, which she did not succeed in doing against the background of her serious illness after the notary's credible presentation. The prerequisites for an inability to write were not yet met.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200811-99-127939 / 4

Working group inheritance law