Make your own New York will.
Yours in about 20 minutes. Legally valid in New York. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Is a self-written will legal in New York?
Yes. New York recognizes wills you write yourself, as long as they meet the state's signing requirements. The governing statute is N.Y. EPTL §3-2.1.
Your will needs to be in writing, signed by you, and witnessed by 2 adults. You don't need a notary for the will itself to be valid, but adding a notarized "self-proving" affidavit makes the probate process faster later (this tool generates that for you automatically).
You must be at least 18 years old and of sound mind. Choose witnesses who don't inherit under your will: some states void or reduce a gift to a witness, and the exact New York rule is covered below. This tool walks you through the rules so you don't trip over them.
A will you write yourself has the same legal force as one drafted by an attorney, provided you follow the signing rules. Courts admit self-written wills to probate every day. An attorney's value is in advising on complex estates, not in drafting the document itself.
What it costs to make a will in New York
A New York estate-planning attorney typically charges $300 to $600 for a simple will, and $1,000 to $1,500 for a will-plus-revocable-trust package. Rates run higher in dense metros and lower in rural areas. Most attorneys bill at $250 to $400 per hour and need one or two meetings to draft a basic will.
You can also write a will entirely from scratch with a sheet of paper and a pen, with no software at all. New York requires the same 2-witness signing process regardless of who drafts the document. The risk with a from-scratch will is technical: a missing self-proving affidavit, a witness who's also a beneficiary, or wording that creates ambiguity for the probate court. That's what this tool prevents.
Will.com is free at the document level. The $29/year subscription adds cloud-stored, zero-knowledge-encrypted access so you can edit and update your plan as life changes.
New York will requirements at a glance
How it works
- 1
Answer a few questions
About you, your family, and what you own.
- 2
Download your will
A complete, personalized document, formatted for New York courts.
- 3
Sign with witnesses
Print and sign in front of 2 adult witnesses. Keep the signed copy somewhere safe.
When you might want an attorney instead
An online will works for most people. It's the right tool when your situation is straightforward: you want to leave your assets to family or friends, you don't have complex tax issues, and you're not anticipating a fight over your estate.
Consider hiring an attorney if any of these apply:
- Your estate is large enough to trigger federal estate tax (over $15 million in 2026) or New York estate or inheritance tax.
- You own a business, complex investments, or assets in multiple states or countries.
- You're in a blended family, especially if you want to leave assets to a current spouse while protecting children from a prior relationship.
- You have a child or beneficiary with special needs and want a supplemental-needs trust that won't disqualify them from public benefits.
- You expect someone to contest the will, or you're disinheriting a close family member.
- You have substantial retirement accounts and want sophisticated beneficiary planning.
If none of these apply, an online will is genuinely fine. The legal validity of your will doesn't depend on who drafted it, only on whether New York's signing rules were followed.
Self-proving affidavit in New York
New York recognizes self-proving affidavits. Will.com attaches one to your will: a short statement your witnesses sign in front of a notary, swearing to what they saw when you signed. See SCPA §1406.
A self-proven will skips the requirement to track down witnesses years later for the probate court. It's optional, but adding the affidavit at signing time saves your executor work. Will.com generates the affidavit alongside the will.
Who can witness your will in New York
N.Y. EPTL §3-3.2: an attesting witness who also takes a beneficial disposition under the will is a competent witness, and the will remains valid; however the disposition to that witness is void unless there are at least two other disinterested attesting witnesses. Even with two other disinterested attesting witnesses, the disposition is void if the will cannot be proved without that witness's testimony (subparagraph (a)(2) of the same section). A witness whose disposition is void and who would be a distributee if the will were not established may take so much of the intestate share as does not exceed the value of the void disposition (recoverable from the residuary or, if the disposition passes in intestacy, ratably from the other distributees); a witness who would not be a distributee takes nothing (subparagraph (a)(3)).
Family changes after you sign
A child born or adopted after the will. A child who arrives after you sign, and who isn't named or accounted for in the will, is covered by New York law rather than by your wishes. The safest practice is to update your will when your family changes.
N.Y. EPTL §5-3.2: an after-born child shares in the estate only if the testator died leaving that child unprovided for by any settlement and neither provided for nor in any way mentioned in the will, so a mention alone defeats the claim (§5-3.2(a)). Where that threshold is met the outcome turns on what the will did for the testator's other children. If the testator had one or more children living when the will was executed and the will made no provision for any of them, the after-born child takes nothing (§5-3.2(a)(1)(A)). If the will provided for one or more of those children, the after-born child shares only in the dispositions made to children under the will, receiving the share the child would have received had the testator included all after-born children with the children benefited and given each an equal share, of the same character, equitable or legal, life estate or fee, as the interest the testator conferred on those children (§5-3.2(a)(1)(B)); but if it appears from the will that the testator intended a limited provision applying only to children living at execution, the after-born child takes the intestate share instead (§5-3.2(a)(1)(B)(iii)). If the testator had no child living when the will was executed, the after-born child takes the intestate share (§5-3.2(a)(2)). An after-born child means a child born during the testator's lifetime or in gestation at the testator's death and born afterward, and a non-marital child born after execution is an after-born child of the father only where paternity is established under EPTL §4-1.2 (§5-3.2(b)). Recovery is ratable, from the other children where the share comes under (a)(1)(B) and from the testamentary beneficiaries where it comes under (a)(2), preserving the character of the testamentary plan to the maximum extent possible (§5-3.2(c)).
Recent New York will-law changes
New York enacts Electronic Wills Act
Governor Hochul signed the Electronic Wills Act, codified at EPTL Article 3, Part 6 (§§3-6.1 to 3-6.9), and conformingly amending N.Y. State Technology Law §307 to except wills under Part 6 from the existing electronic-signature exclusion. The Act takes effect on the 545th day after enactment (June 10, 2027). Trusts, powers of attorney, and health care proxies remain excluded from electronic signatures.
L. 2025 (A7856-A / S7416-A) · Effective 2027-06-10
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