Article 1136
A printed will should be witnessed by two or more witnesses. The testator and witnesses shall sign each page of the will, indicating the year, month and day.
1. The main purpose of this article
This article is about the printing of wills.
II. Evolution of the Provisions
Before the promulgation of the Civil Code, the law did not explicitly provide for the printing of wills. With the development of science and technology and the progress of information technology, the use of computer input and printer printing has slowly replaced the handwriting method to become the mainstream of life and work, and wills entered by computers and printed by printers have gradually appeared, and the original form of wills has been unable to meet the needs of social life and judicial practice. Therefore, this article is added to the succession section of the Civil Code as a reference for the testator to make a will.
3. Interpretation of Provisions
This article is about the printing of wills.
A printed will refers to a will made by the testator through a computer and printed out by a printer. After the popularization of computer applications, few people have written with a pen, and writing and printing through computers has become the norm. In recent years, many people have written wills on a computer, and then printed them out with a printer to form a printed will. Since the Inheritance Law does not stipulate the printing of wills, there are many debates in judicial practice about the validity of printed wills.
In view of the universality of the application of printed wills, this article adopts the opinions of experts and stipulates that printed wills are a statutory form of wills, and if they meet the requirements, their legal effect shall be confirmed.
The requirements for the validity of a printed will are: (1) The will is in the form of a text made by a computer and printed out by a printer. (2) The printed will shall be witnessed by more than two witnesses and signed on every page of the printed will. (3) The testator signs every page of the text of the will. (4) Indicate the year, month, and day at the end. If these requirements are met, the printed will will become testamentary.
4. Cases
Li Jia et al. v. Li Ding and Li Bing, a case of inheritance dispute
Facts: Li and Xie registered their marriage in June 1984, and both parties remarried. At the time of their marriage, their children were adults. The two parties purchased a house and registered it in the name of Li. On August 20, 1993, Li Moumou made a will, leaving all the houses and furniture and equipment to Li Bing to inherit, and Xie Moumou could only live and use them for life. On February 21, 2010, Mr. Li left a printed will, and when he printed the will in the printing shop and took it home to sign, lawyers Yang and Duan were present to witness it. The will stated that because Li Jia gave up his business to take care of himself, he took out 50,000 yuan from his house payment to give priority to Li Jia, and the rest was inherited by the four children. After Li Moumou died, Li Jia and others sued the court to request the division of the estate. The court of first instance held that the printed will left by Li Moumou was only signed by himself, and there was neither the presence of witnesses nor the signature of the scrivener's printer, which did not meet the formal requirements of the scrivener's will, so it held that the will was invalid. The will made by Li Moumou is an expression of his true intention and meets the basic requirements of a self-written will. Considering that Li Jia and Li Ding also fulfilled their duty of care to their father Li Moumou for a longer time, in line with the principles of fairness and reasonableness and family harmony, and on the premise of confirming the legality and validity of the will, it was determined that Li Moumou's share of the real estate enjoyed by Li Moumou would be inherited equally by Li Bing, Li Jia, and Li Ding, and the rest of Li Moumou's estate would be inherited according to law. The court of second instance held that although the printed will made by Li XX was not written by him, in view of the fact that he was over 90 years old and had certain difficulties in writing it personally, it was established by the signature after printing, and the signature was witnessed by two lawyers when the signature was confirmed, and the will should be regarded as a self-written will. Therefore, his estate should be handled in accordance with the will, and the part of the will involving Xie Moumou's property is invalid. The retrial court held that the two lawyers in the case did not witness the production process of the printed will, nor were they the scrivener and witness of the will, and they could only serve as witnesses to prove that Li's signature on the will was genuine, and the printed will left by Li did not meet the legal requirements of the self-written will and the scrivener's will, and was an invalid will. Li's self-written will is valid, and the judgment of the original court of first instance is not only in accordance with the provisions of the law, but also reasonable, and should be recognized.
5. Analysis
In the case, Li's printed will was dictated by Li and printed by the staff of the printing shop, and from the perspective of the formation of the will, it did not meet the legal requirements of a self-written will, so it was not a self-written will. According to the provisions of the Inheritance Law, which was in effect at the time of the case, a scrivener and testament should be witnessed by two or more witnesses, one of whom should write on behalf of the scrivener, indicating the year, month and day, and the scrivener and other witnesses should be present to witness it. The two lawyers who signed the will did not witness the formation of the will, so they were neither the scriveners of the will, nor could they be called the witnesses of the will in the legal sense, and they could only be used as witnesses to prove that Li's signature on the will was true, so the will was not a scrivener and was invalid. If the case occurs after the Civil Code comes into effect, if there are more than two legal witnesses present to witness the production of the printed will, and sign each page of the will together with the testator, and finally indicate the year, month and day, then the will will will become a new form of will and have legal effect.