What it means
§733.201 says how a will is proved for admission to probate. A self-proved will is admitted without further proof. Otherwise, the oath of any attesting witness — taken before a circuit judge, court-appointed commissioner, or clerk — is enough.
If the attesting witnesses cannot be found, have become incapacitated, or their testimony cannot be obtained within a reasonable time, the will may be admitted on the oath of the personal representative nominated by the will (interested in the estate or not), or of any person with no interest under the will who believes the writing is the decedent's true last will. A purportedly self-proved electronic will loses the shortcut if its online notarization substantially failed to follow §117.265.
- Self-proved wills are admitted to probate without further proof.
- Otherwise, the oath of any attesting witness before a judge, commissioner, or clerk admits the will.
- Witnesses unavailable → oath of the nominated personal representative or of a person with no interest under the will.
- An electronic will whose online notarization substantially violated §117.265 cannot be treated as self-proved.
How it plays out
In most uncontested probates we handle, proof of the will is invisible — the self-proving affidavit signed at the estate-planning table does the work, and nobody hunts down witnesses years later. The section earns attention with older or out-of-state wills that were never self-proved: we locate an attesting witness for an oath, and when the witnesses are dead or missing, subsection (3) is the fallback that keeps an otherwise valid will from failing on logistics.
Questions people ask
