Fancy making your will by text message?

PEOPLE could be allowed to make their wills using voicemail and text messages as part of a radical overhaul of inheritance laws.

The Law Commission has branded the legal system ‘outdated’ and proposed the change to keep up with the digital age.

Laws which date back to 1839 state that wills need to be written and signed by the testator as well as two witnesses to be valid. But the Government’s legal advisers suggest those rules are unclear.

The commission has called for the law to be relaxed to allow notes, emails and voicemail messages to be used in place of a written will. Under the plan, new powers would allow county and High Court judges to decide ‘on the balance of probabilities’ whether a recording or note is an accurate summary of a person’s wishes.

Last-minute changes of heart on a deathbed could be recorded and used to over-rule an existing will. The commission did admit it could lead to family arguments, saying ‘dissatisfied relatives may be tempted to sift through texts, emails and other records in order to find one that could be put forward as a will’.