Short answer is – when you die, yes. Your will is entered into the probate court where it becomes public record. Anyone can access your will. Before you die however, your will is not public record.

Once you write your will and have it signed by two disinterested witnesses, youhave a few options. You can hold on to it until you die. Or you can put it in a safe deposit box… The old school method is to have your lawyer hold on to it for you but many lawyers aren’t doing this anymore. You can even give it to friend or family member or hide it under your bed.

The point is – you hold on to your will until you die. You can keep it anywhere where it will be safe. You don’t have to file it anywhere either – until you die. SO during your life time the will is a private document.

When you die your executor (who you appoint in your will) will take your will and enter it in probate. That will start the probate process. At that point, once it’s entered into the court, the will becomes public record.

Now, some people freak out when they hear this. But think about this practically. I don’t think there’s much concern over your will being public for two reasons:

1) your will doesn’t have to reveal much. For example, if you’re worried about people seeing how much money you have when you die… you don’t have to list monetary amounts on your will. You can say “half my estate to so and so” and the other half to someone else. Wills also don’t need to have anyone’s social security or phone numbers or even home addresses of the beneficiaries. So, much of the info you reveal on a will is already public record like your own address and name.

2) Nobody knows how to look up wills / nobody cares. The general public doesn’t know how to look up a will. On the off chance that someone is so obsessed with your estate that they go through the trouble of finding your docket number, go to the court, dig through all these weird documents in your probate file to find your will, and then dicipher funky legal jargon, like – nobody goes that far. People who look up wills are lawyers and sometimes realtors who want to buy a cheap house from an estate. But I can almost gaurantee that when a person dies their family and friends aren’t looking up their wills.

In conclusion, although wills do become public when you die, it’s really not a dangerous or comprimising thing. Also, you’ll be dead so who cares?

It’s true.

If you need a will shoot me an email! dresslerjake@gmail.com

I do wills for $500, estate plans for $700 and life estate deeds for $500