Will.com / Wills / South Carolina
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Is a self-written will legal in South Carolina?
Yes. South Carolina recognizes wills you write yourself, as long as they meet the state's signing requirements. The governing statute is S.C. Code §62-2-501 et seq.
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 South Carolina 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 South Carolina
A South Carolina 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. South Carolina 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.
South Carolina 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 South Carolina 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 South Carolina 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 South Carolina's signing rules were followed.
Self-proving affidavit in South Carolina
South Carolina 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 S.C. Code §62-2-503(a).
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 South Carolina
S.C. Code §62-2-504(a): a subscribing witness is not incompetent to attest or prove a will by reason of a devise to the witness, the witness's spouse, or the witness's issue. Purging turns on witness COUNT, not on whether the interested witness's testimony is needed to prove the will: if there are two disinterested witnesses in addition to the interested witness, the devise is valid; if there are not, the devise is void to the extent its value exceeds what the witness, the witness's spouse, or the witness's issue would have taken had the will not been established. The voided portion passes by intestacy under §62-2-101 et seq., and the interested witness's share may not increase as a result. The will itself remains valid. Practical effect on a two-witness South Carolina will: there are never two disinterested witnesses in addition to an interested one, so a devise to a witness is purged.
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 South Carolina law rather than by your wishes. The safest practice is to update your will when your family changes.
S.C. Code §62-2-302: a child born or adopted after the will was executed receives, upon compliance with subsection (d), a share equal in value to an intestate share, unless (1) it appears from the will that the omission was intentional, (2) when the will was executed the testator devised substantially all the estate to the testator's spouse, or (3) the testator provided for the child by a transfer outside the will and the intent that the transfer be in lieu of a testamentary provision is shown by statements of the testator, by the amount of the transfer, or by other evidence (§62-2-302(a)). Note that South Carolina's second exception turns on a devise to the testator's spouse, not to the omitted child's other parent as the Uniform Probate Code has it, so it can apply where the spouse is not that child's parent. A living child omitted solely because the testator believed the child to be dead takes the same intestate-equivalent share, and subsection (b) attaches none of the three exceptions to it. The share is not self-executing: the child, or a guardian or conservator acting for the child, must file in the court and serve on the personal representative a summons and petition within the later of eight months after the date of death, six months after informal or formal probate of the will, or thirty days after being served with a petition to set aside informal probate or to modify or vacate an order for formal probate, and must give notice of the hearing to the personal representative and to distributees and recipients whose interests the share will adversely affect (§62-2-302(d)). In satisfying either share the devises made by the will abate as provided in §62-3-902 (§62-2-302(c)).
A spouse you married after signing. Updating the will after marriage avoids relying on whatever South Carolina law provides by default.
S.C. Code §62-2-301: a spouse who married the testator after the will was executed, and for whom the will fails to provide, receives, upon compliance with subsection (c), the same share of the estate the spouse would have received if the decedent had left no will, unless (1) it appears from the will that the omission was intentional, or (2) the testator provided for the spouse by a transfer outside the will and the intent that the transfer be in lieu of a testamentary provision is shown by statements of the testator, by the amount of the transfer, or by other evidence (§62-2-301(a)). A transfer outside the will does not defeat the claim without that showing. The share is not self-executing: the spouse must file in the court and serve on the personal representative a summons and petition within the later of eight months after the date of death, six months after informal or formal probate of the will, or thirty days after being served with a petition to set aside informal probate or to modify or vacate an order for formal probate, and must give notice of the hearing to the personal representative and to distributees and recipients whose interests the share will adversely affect (§62-2-301(c)). In satisfying the share the devises made by the will abate as provided in §62-3-902 (§62-2-301(b)).
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