How to Fill Out and Sign the Michigan Statutory Will Form

The Michigan statutory will form is a fill-in-the-blank will written directly into state law at MCL 700.2519. If you are at least 18 and have the mental capacity to make a will, you can print the form, fill in your name, family, and a few choices, and sign it in front of two witnesses to create a legally valid Michigan will without hiring an attorney.¹ The trade-off is flexibility. You can leave cash to only two people or charities, and the rest of your property follows a fixed path to your spouse and children.

Who Can Use the Form

Two things qualify you. You must be at least 18 years old, and you must have sufficient mental capacity to make a will.¹ Under Michigan law, that means you can understand that you are deciding what happens to your property after death, know what you own, know who your relatives are, and grasp the general effect of signing the document.² The form asks for your Michigan county of residence, so it’s built for Michigan residents.

Read the Notice at the top of the form before you begin. The statutory will has no effect on jointly held property, retirement plan beneficiary designations, or life insurance policies where you have already named a beneficiary, and it is not designed to reduce estate taxes.¹

Where to Get a Valid Copy

The full text of the form appears in MCL 700.2519(2). The Michigan Legislature publishes it online, and anyone may print and distribute it as long as the wording is reproduced word for word.¹ Your county probate court can also give you a printed copy. Don’t use a version that modifies the language. The statute requires the form to appear verbatim, and changes can invalidate the document.

Article 1: Your Name, County, Spouse, and Children

Article 1 identifies you and your immediate family. Print or type your full legal name at the top. Fill in the Michigan county where you live. Enter your spouse’s full name, or write “none” if you are not married. List every living child by name, or write “none” if you have none. The form treats adopted children and children born outside of marriage the same as children born during a marriage.¹

Get Article 1 right. The names you write here control who counts as your spouse and children throughout the rest of the form. Leaving a child off the list can unintentionally disinherit that child or force a contest in probate.

Article 2: Where Your Property Goes

Article 2 is the distribution section. It has three parts, each with its own rules. Checkboxes and initial lines are used throughout; pick only one option per section and initial next to your choice.

Section 2.1: Cash Gifts

This section is optional. You may leave cash gifts to up to two people or charities, and no more than two.¹ For each gift, write the recipient’s full name and address and enter the dollar amount in both numerals and words. Any transfer tax owed on these gifts is paid from the rest of your estate rather than deducted from the gift. Skip the section entirely if you don’t want to make cash gifts.

Section 2.2: Personal and Household Items

Section 2.2 covers your tangible personal property, meaning furniture, jewelry, clothing, electronics, and similar belongings. You choose, by initialing, to leave these items to your spouse if living, or to your children if you are unmarried or your spouse dies first. This section does not let you direct individual items to individual people. For that, you need a separate written list, described below.

Section 2.3: Everything Else

This section covers your residuary estate, which is whatever remains after debts, taxes, and the Section 2.1 cash gifts are paid. The form directs the residue to your spouse. If you are unmarried at death or your spouse dies first, the residue passes to your children and to the descendants of any deceased child.¹ You cannot customize this path. If you want unequal shares among your children or need to leave the residue to someone outside your immediate family, this form will not do it.

Article 3: Personal Representative, Guardian, and Conservator

Article 3 asks you to nominate the people who will handle your affairs and care for your children.

Your personal representative collects your assets, pays debts and taxes, and distributes what remains under the will. Name a first choice and an alternate in case the first cannot serve.¹
If you have children under 18, the guardian is the person who will look after their physical well-being and daily care.
The conservator manages a minor child’s inherited assets and makes financial decisions on the child’s behalf. The conservator can be the same person as the guardian, but doesn’t have to be.

Talk with anyone you plan to name before writing them in. Being named as a personal representative or guardian is a real commitment, and the form works best when the people listed have already agreed.

Leaving Specific Items to Specific People

Section 2.2 moves all your personal belongings as a group. It won’t let you leave your grandmother’s ring to one person and your guitar to another. A separate written list solves that. Under MCL 700.2513, your will may refer to a standalone written statement that assigns specific items of tangible personal property to specific people.³

To be valid, the list must either be entirely in your handwriting or signed by you at the end, and it must describe each item and each recipient clearly enough that there’s no confusion. Witnesses and notarization are not required. You can create it before or after signing the will, and you can revise it any time by writing a new version. Date each version and destroy old copies to avoid ambiguity.

The list only works for physical objects. You cannot use it to distribute money, stocks, bonds, real estate, or anything that already passes by beneficiary designation like life insurance or retirement accounts.³

Signing the Will With Witnesses

A completed form becomes a valid will only when it’s signed properly. Michigan requires your signature and the signatures of at least two witnesses.⁴ Each witness must sign within a reasonable time after watching you sign or hearing you acknowledge your signature. If you are physically unable to sign, you may direct another person to sign in your name and in your presence.

Michigan does not prohibit a beneficiary from acting as a witness; an interested witness does not invalidate the will or any provision in it.⁵ Even so, picking witnesses who have nothing to gain from the will removes any opening for someone to later argue that a witness pressured you. Neighbors, coworkers, or friends not named in the document are good choices.

The form itself warns against adding words, crossing things out, or making any changes beyond filling in the blanks. Doing so could invalidate part or all of the will.¹ If you make a mistake, print a fresh copy and start over.

Making the Will Self-Proving

A self-proving will can be admitted to probate without tracking down the witnesses to testify years later. Michigan lets you make the will self-proving by adding a sworn affidavit signed by you, your two witnesses, and a notary public, all at the same time.⁶ The notary administers an oath, everyone signs, and the notary applies an official seal.

This step is optional but strongly worth doing. Without it, your personal representative may need to locate your witnesses later and have them confirm the signing, which gets harder if a witness has moved, lost capacity, or died. Schedule a notary for the same day you sign so everyone is in the room at once. If you add the self-proving affidavit later, you and both witnesses must appear before the notary together a second time.⁶

Storing the Signed Original

Keep the signed original somewhere secure, like a fireproof safe at home or a safe deposit box at your bank. Tell your personal representative where to find it. A will no one can locate after your death is functionally no will at all.

You can also file the original with your county probate court for safekeeping. In Kent County the fee is $25.⁷ The court holds the sealed document and releases it only on your death or at your written request.

When the Statutory Will Won’t Fit

The statutory will works well for a straightforward family with a spouse, children, and no unusual goals. It will not accommodate several common situations:

Cash to more than two people or charities. The two-recipient cap in Section 2.1 is hard-coded.
Unequal shares among your children. The residue passes equally.
A beneficiary who receives government benefits. Leaving assets outright could disqualify them, and the form cannot create a special needs trust.
Business interests or complex assets. There’s no mechanism for business succession, asset protection structures, or distributing LLC or partnership interests.
Blended families. Providing for stepchildren or dividing assets between a current spouse and children from a prior relationship in a specific way isn’t possible under the fixed distribution.
Tax planning. The form’s own Notice states that it is not designed to reduce estate taxes.¹

Michigan imposes no state estate or inheritance tax, and the federal estate tax applies only to estates above $15,000,000 in 2026.⁸ Most people using the statutory will are well below that threshold. If your estate is close, work with an attorney on tax-focused planning instead.

Changing or Revoking the Will Later

You cannot edit a signed statutory will by crossing out words or writing in new ones. The form warns that doing so could void part or all of the document.¹ To make changes, print a fresh copy, fill it in with your updated choices, and sign it with new witnesses. The opening line of Article 1, “This is my will and I revoke any prior wills and codicils,” cancels the earlier version automatically.

You can also revoke a will by physically destroying it with the intent to cancel. Tearing, burning, or shredding the signed original all work, as long as the destruction is intentional and not accidental.

Life events deserve attention. If you divorce after signing, Michigan law automatically revokes every provision that benefits your former spouse, including property distributions and the nomination of your ex-spouse as personal representative; the rest of the will stays in effect, and those gaps are treated as if the former spouse predeceased you. If you marry after signing, the form’s own Notice recommends that you make and sign a new will.¹ A new spouse not named in an existing will may have a claim under Michigan’s intestacy laws that overrides what the will says, so redo the form promptly after any major family change.

1
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 700.2519 – Statutory Will
2
Michigan Legislature. Estates and Protected Individuals Code – Act 386 of 1998
3
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 700.2513
4
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 700.2502 – Execution, Witnessed Wills, Holographic Wills
5
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 700.2505 – Witnesses
6
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 700.2504 – Self-Proved Will
7
Kent County, MI. Fee Schedule
8
Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax