A fifteen-minute online will is a genuinely appealing idea. You’ve just had a baby, bought a house, or finally decided to stop putting this off, and a $30 template that claims to work in all 50 states sounds like a reasonable shortcut. The appeal is real, and we don’t dismiss it. But Michigan runs its own rulebook for what makes estate planning documents valid, and several assumptions baked into national online platforms don’t survive contact with that rulebook.
John Inhulsen, recognized by Best Lawyers in America and Michigan Super Lawyers, works with Grand Rapids-area families on exactly these questions. What follows isn’t a blanket warning against doing things yourself. It’s a clear look at where Michigan law diverges from what those forms expect, so you can make an informed decision about how much risk you’re actually taking on.
Michigan’s Own Statutory Will Versus Commercial Online Templates
Most people shopping for an online will don’t know Michigan offers its own free, state-authorized form. Under MCL 700.2519, part of Michigan’s Estates and Protected Individuals Code (EPIC), the state provides a statutory will through the Michigan Legal Help Do-It-Yourself Will tool. It is a meaningfully different document from what national commercial platforms sell.
The Michigan statutory will is tightly constrained by design. It allows no more than two cash gifts to specific people or organizations. Everything else, your home, your savings, your personal property, passes automatically to your spouse if you’re married, or gets divided equally among your children if you’re not. There’s no room for more nuanced distribution. The form itself warns users not to cross anything out or add language beyond the designated blanks, because any unauthorized alteration can invalidate the entire document. Jointly held property, retirement account beneficiaries, and life insurance proceeds are controlled by their own titling and beneficiary designations, not by any will. A family with a blended household, a business interest, or assets held in multiple ways will find the statutory form stops covering them very quickly.
Execution Rules That Online Forms Often Get Wrong
Under MCL 700.2502, a valid Michigan will must be in writing, signed by the person making it, and witnessed by at least two people, each of whom signed within a reasonable time after witnessing either the testator’s signing or the testator’s acknowledgment of that signature or of the will. That sequence matters. A witness who was in another room, signed well after the fact, or only observed part of the process creates a potential basis for challenge.
One rule Michigan handles more gently than many other states involves interested witnesses, someone who also stands to inherit under the will. In many states, an interested witness can void the bequest to that person or even the whole document. Michigan doesn’t work that way. Under EPIC, an interested witness doesn’t automatically invalidate the will or any provision in it. Online platforms that list their own state-specific cautions sometimes import the stricter rule without noting that Michigan doesn’t share it.
Michigan also recognizes holographic wills, a will written entirely by hand without witnesses, as long as it’s dated and the material provisions and signature are in the testator’s own handwriting. Very few states still allow this. It’s not a planning strategy we’d recommend, but it does mean Michigan courts aren’t rigidly locked into a single format for every situation.
What Michigan Actually Allows for Electronic Wills
This is where some online content gets it badly wrong. Several articles circulating right now state that Michigan has adopted the Uniform Electronic Wills Act (UEWA), the model law that allows a will to be signed and witnessed entirely online. Michigan hasn’t adopted it. Roughly ten states, including Florida, Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada, currently permit fully electronic will execution under the UEWA or a comparable statute. A will signed electronically in Grand Rapids, without the physical signatures and in-person witnesses MCL 700.2502 requires, isn’t valid under current Michigan law, regardless of what the platform’s terms of service say about it being “legally binding in all 50 states.”
One related point worth understanding: notarization isn’t required for a Michigan will to be valid. It only becomes relevant when a testator chooses to add a self-proving affidavit, which streamlines the probate process by allowing the court to accept the will without tracking down witnesses to testify. It’s a useful addition, but skipping it doesn’t make the will invalid. Online platforms that push notarization as a necessary step may be overstating it, or pulling from a different state’s requirements.
When a Power of Attorney Falls Short
Wills get most of the attention, but powers of attorney and patient advocate designations carry equal weight for families planning ahead. Michigan’s Uniform Power of Attorney Act, codified at MCL 556.201 and following sections, took effect in 2024 and introduced changes that affect both new documents and older ones still in circulation. The act added what are called “hot powers,” specific authority types, like the ability to make gifts or change beneficiary designations, that require explicit written authorization in the document itself. A power of attorney that doesn’t address these powers specifically doesn’t grant them, even if the agent believed they had broad authority. Banks and financial institutions are increasingly familiar with this distinction, and documents that predate the 2024 update, or were created from outdated online templates, are facing rejection more often.
Patient advocate designations, which handle healthcare decisions when someone can’t speak for themselves, carry their own formal requirement under MCL 700.5507: the named advocate must sign a written acceptance of the role before acting. Many online forms for healthcare directives omit that signature requirement entirely. A document without it doesn’t create a valid patient advocate designation under Michigan law.
If a DIY Document Fails: What Happens in Kent County
When an estate planning document is challenged or found invalid, the case doesn’t go to a generic court. For Grand Rapids families, it lands at the Kent County Probate Court, located at 180 Ottawa Avenue NW, Suite 2500, Grand Rapids, MI 49503. That’s where a dispute over whether your will was properly witnessed, or whether your power of attorney met the 2024 requirements, actually gets decided.
If a will is ruled invalid, Michigan’s intestate succession statute, MCL 700.2103, takes over. It distributes your estate according to a fixed hierarchy: a surviving spouse and children are prioritized, but the specific shares depend on the family structure. Someone who wanted to leave more to one child than another, provide for a close friend, or protect a stepchild who isn’t a legal heir gets none of that. The informally expressed wishes in a void document carry no legal weight. Probate under those circumstances costs more, takes longer, and produces outcomes the person almost certainly didn’t intend.
Making a Confident Decision About How to Proceed
Michigan’s statutory will is a real option for someone who is single, has no business interests, owns straightforward assets, and wants to leave everything equally to their children. It stops fitting most real families fairly quickly, though, once you add a spouse, a blended family, unequal distribution goals, or assets with their own beneficiary rules. The same is true for online power of attorney templates that haven’t been updated to reflect Michigan’s 2024 changes. A document that looks complete may already be out of step with what financial institutions will accept.
Before relying on any document you’ve filled out online, or one that’s been sitting in a drawer for a few years, it’s worth having it reviewed by someone who knows Michigan’s current requirements. Inhulsen Law welcomes those conversations, and John Inhulsen can be reached at (616) 345-2810.