Will requirements in Iowa

Iowa requires you to be at least 18 and of sound mind. Capacity is judged at the moment of signing and asks whether you understood the nature of the act, roughly what you owned, and who would ordinarily expect to inherit from you.

An Iowa will is valid without a notary. Notarization produces the self-proving affidavit — a sworn statement signed by you and both witnesses and attached to the will, letting it be admitted to probate without your witnesses being located and asked to testify.

Because Iowa's purge only bites when two disinterested witnesses did not sign, the moment of taking the affidavit is a good opportunity to confirm that neither of your witnesses inherits under the will.

Iowa does not recognise holographic wills. A handwritten, unwitnessed document has no effect as a will here regardless of how clearly it sets out your wishes.

This is worth flagging for anyone who has moved to Iowa from Nebraska or North Dakota, both of which accept handwritten wills where the signature and material portions are in the testator's hand. The assumption travels across the state line and is wrong once it arrives.

Iowa allows a simplified route for estates below a statutory limit, avoiding full administration.

The threshold has been raised in recent years, which is exactly the situation where aggregated figures go stale. We are not printing a number — confirm the current amount with the clerk of the district court in the relevant county.

Iowa is a common law property state. Ownership follows title rather than being automatically shared between spouses because property was acquired during the marriage.

A surviving spouse has an elective share, so a spouse generally cannot be disinherited by will alone. Iowa's elective share includes an interest in real property, which matters particularly where farmland forms part of an estate — how that land is titled can matter as much as what the will says.

Iowa provides a living will declaration for recording treatment preferences and a durable power of attorney for health care naming someone to make medical decisions when you cannot. Iowa also uses IPOST forms in clinical settings, which are medical orders rather than advance directives.

A separate durable power of attorney covers financial affairs. These documents operate while you are alive, which is precisely the gap a will never fills.