Is An Online Will Legally Valid in Arkansas?
Yes, Arkansas recognizes online wills as legal documents, provided you follow through on a few execution steps after you finish typing. Here's what those steps look like.
Not to worry, FeedingBird handles the details and walks you through every step.
What Makes an Online Will Legally Valid in Arkansas?
Online wills are legal in Arkansas, but electronic wills, meaning ones signed and witnessed entirely online, are not currently allowed. Your will needs to be printed on paper, signed by the person stating their wishes (the testator), and witnesses by two people who are at least 18 years old. You do not need to notarize your will, but a notarized self-proving affidavit makes probate faster.
Arkansas does allow holographic, or handwritten, wills written entirely in the testator's own hand and signed, without witnesses required at signing. That said, proving a holographic will at probate takes testimony from three disinterested people, individuals not listed as beneficiaries in the will, who can confirm the handwriting, so a witnessed will is usually the smoother option.
What You Need to Know about Online Wills in Arkansas
Arkansas Property Laws
Arkansas is not a community property state. It's also one of the few states that still recognizes dower and curtesy, which gives a surviving spouse a life estate in a share of your real property no matter what your will says.
Arkansas Probate
All wills go through probate in Arkansas unless the net estate is $100,000 or less after debts and allowances, in which case a small estate procedure is available 45 days after death. Otherwise, a trust is needed to avoid probate. Arkansas has no state estate or inheritance tax.
Avoiding Probate in Arkansas
- Put your assets in a revocable living trust, which provides more control over your estate and grants privacy from public proceedings. You name a successor trustee who will manage distributing your assets after your death.
- Name beneficiary designations on financial and retirement accounts which allows those accounts to pass to a new owner upon your death.
- Enable joint ownership with right of survivorship to give your spouse or another co-owner automatic ownership of any joint property at the time of your death.
- Plan around dower and curtesy. Because Arkansas gives a spouse a life estate in real property regardless of a will, a trust often works better than a will alone for real estate.
Want to learn more about trusts in Arkansas? Find out what you’ll need to put a trust together.
