Codicil for Will (CA)

The circumstances in your life may change after you've crafted your estate plan. During your lifetime, a new child may be born, a named beneficiary may die, you may undergo a divorce, you may change your mind about the division of your property, or you may inherit real estate or wealth which is not properly accounted for in your existing will. In short, as the circumstances of your life change, you may need to update your will. You can change, add, or even revoke provisions in your will any time before your death as long as you are physically and mentally sound.

NEVER add changes or revisions to a will by simply adding hand-written remarks in ink on the face of the will. Doing so could invalidate the will entirely.

In the vast majority of cases, it is recommended that you create a new will if the circumstances in your life have changed.

However, in some cases where the changes to your will are relatively minor, it might be possible to create a codicil, which is a form of amendment to your will. You may wish to seek the advice of an attorney when creating a codicil (instead of creating a new will) to ensure that nothing you have written in the codicil conflicts with what is in your will.