Are you trying to determine where to keep a will in Minnesota? Believe it or not, Minnesota has already thought about this issue and as a result, created a process in 1997. For more information on this process, please contact this law office for advisement.
The bottom line is this – you can keep a will in Minnesota in any spot you feel is safe. Now that it was brought up, should you keep a will in Minnesota in a safe? Under a rule called Rule 418, a person can deposit a will with the court administrator in any county they want. However, to keep a will in Minnesota implies you know have stuff in Minnesota. If you have stuff in Minnesota, you likely want your stuff found by those who can step in when a will becomes necessary. For this reason, depositing a will with a court administrator because you are looking for a spot to keep a will in Minnesota is not right for everybody.
Specific to Rule 418, any will may be withdrawn by the person who wrote it upon presentation of identification and signing an appropriate receipt. Also, another person may withdraw the will by presenting a written authorization signed by the person who wrote the will and two witnesses with the testator’s signature notarized.
Where to keep a will in Minnesota is a personal choice. An advantage to depositing a will with the court administrator is it will be sealed in an envelope and there is a special protocol to examine the will. Provided you limit the person who is able to examine your will to yourself – it is unlikely that any other person will have access to it. Compare this to the process of keeping your will in your home. If your goal is to keep a will in Minnesota such that nobody else is able to see it until your death, depositing a will with the court administrator is a good approach because it prevents others from changing it.
On the other hand, it is very common for people to change their will days before their death. In this situation, it is often impossible to seek out a court administrator on your “death bed” because nobody ever knows when or how death will appear. Sometimes, people forget which court house they sought as the place to deposit their will or the person who wrote the will chose a court house near their cabin versus their place of residence or near their final resting place. Again, every situation is different and for these reasons, where to keep a will in Minnesota is a personal choice.
If you need help creating a will, editing a will, or advisement on where to keep your will in Minnesota, please contact this law office for help.
