Can I Have Multiple Wills?

You can physically sign more than one will in your lifetime, but only one of them will actually govern your estate, and having several floating around is more likely to cause a fight than to help your family.

The Short Answer

Yes, a person can create multiple wills over the years, and most people do exactly that as their lives change. What matters is not how many wills you have signed but which one is valid and current at the time of your death. Under Washington law, a later will revokes an earlier one, either expressly or to the extent the two conflict. That rule lives in RCW 11.12.040, which says a will can be revoked by a subsequent will that revokes the prior will "expressly or by inconsistency." In plain terms, the newest valid will controls, and it wipes out whatever came before it either entirely, if it says so, or piece by piece where it disagrees with the old one.

What "Revoked by Inconsistency" Really Means

The word inconsistency in RCW 11.12.040 is where confusion creeps in. If your 2015 will leaves your car to your brother, and your 2024 will leaves that same car to your niece, the newer instruction controls the car because the two directions cannot both be true. But if your 2024 will is silent about something your 2015 will addressed, a court may have to sort out whether the newer document was meant to replace the old one completely or only to update part of it. That ambiguity is exactly the problem with keeping old wills alive. When a will clearly states that it revokes all prior wills, which most professionally drafted wills do, it removes the guesswork. When it does not, your family may be left arguing about what you intended, sometimes years after the fact.

Why the Most Recent Will Usually Wins

Because RCW 11.12.040 gives priority to the later will, estate planning attorneys almost always include express revocation language at the very start of a new will. That single sentence, declaring that all earlier wills and codicils are revoked, is what makes a fresh will a clean slate rather than one more document to reconcile. When you sign a new will that properly revokes the old ones, the earlier versions lose their legal force. The goal is not to accumulate wills but to replace them, so that at any given moment there is exactly one document that speaks for you.

The Danger of Conflicting Wills

Trouble arrives when more than one signed will survives and no one is certain which is the latest or whether the newest truly revoked the rest. Imagine two wills surface after a death, both apparently valid, each naming a different person to inherit the family home in Snohomish County. Someone now has to prove which will came last, whether the later one revoked the earlier, and whether the earlier one was ever physically destroyed. This is the kind of dispute that turns a routine probate into a contested one, drains the estate through legal fees, and pits relatives against each other. RCW 11.12.040 also recognizes that a will can be revoked by a physical act, such as burning, tearing, or destroying it with the intent to revoke, which is why cleaning up old documents matters as much as signing the new one.

What to Do With Your Old Will

When you sign a new will, the safest practice is to physically destroy the prior original and any copies you can locate, so there is no chance an outdated version resurfaces and competes with the current one. Keep only the most recent original in a safe, known place, and make sure the person you have named as personal representative knows where to find it. If you have given copies of an old will to family members or a former attorney, ask for them back or let those people know a newer will now controls. The point is to leave behind one clear voice, not a chorus of contradictory documents.

Updating Versus Replacing

There is a difference between wanting to change one small thing and wanting to redo your plan. A minor change can sometimes be handled with a codicil, which is a short amendment to an existing will, though many people find it cleaner to sign a fresh will that folds in the update and revokes everything before it. Either way, the mechanics of RCW 11.12.040 govern the result: the later validly executed document controls, and it should be drafted to say so unmistakably. Life events like marriage, divorce, a new child, a move, or a significant change in assets are natural moments to revisit your will, and each time you do, you replace rather than stack.

The Bottom Line

You may sign as many wills as your circumstances require over a lifetime, but you should aim to have only one valid, current will in existence at any time. Washington gives priority to the most recent properly executed will and treats earlier ones as revoked to the extent they conflict, which is a sensible rule that only works cleanly when you retire your old documents. Keeping multiple live wills invites confusion, delay, and family conflict that careful planning easily avoids.

If it has been a while since you looked at your will, or if you are not sure how many versions are still out there, the Law Office of Chad Foster can help you review what you have and make sure a single, clear plan is the one that speaks for you.