Does Marriage Revoke a Will in Scotland?

South of the border, one of the most widely known rules in wills and probate is that getting married automatically cancels any will you made before the wedding. It comes as a surprise to many Scottish couples, and to English couples who move north, that this rule simply does not exist in Scotland. A Scottish will made before marriage remains fully valid afterwards, for better or worse, which means it may still say exactly what you intended, or it may leave your estate to people you no longer wish to benefit.

The two different rules sit either side of the border for historical reasons rooted in the separate development of Scots law and English law, and the practical consequences for a newly married couple are significant enough that it is worth understanding both, especially if either partner has connections, property or an existing will drawn up under English law.

Does marriage revoke a will in Scotland?

No. This is the clean, direct answer to a question that trips up a great many people, precisely because the opposite rule is so well known in the rest of the UK. Section 18 of the Wills Act 1837 provides that, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a will is automatically revoked by the testator's marriage or civil partnership, subject to a narrow exception where the will was expressly made in contemplation of that particular marriage. Scots law has never adopted this rule. A will validly made under Scots law before a wedding continues to have full legal effect after it, exactly as if the marriage had never happened.

This difference is not a technicality; it is a fundamental divergence between two separate legal systems operating within the same country. Scotland has its own law of succession, developed independently of English common law, and marriage simply has no automatic effect on testamentary documents under that system. The result is that a Scottish will drafted years before a wedding, perhaps leaving everything to parents, siblings or a previous partner, remains the operative document on death unless it is deliberately changed.

Source: Wills Act 1837, section 18, legislation.gov.uk; Scottish Government guidance on making a will, gov.scot.

So does my new spouse get nothing under an old will?

Not necessarily, and this is the part of Scots law that softens the practical impact of the rule considerably. Even where a will makes no provision at all for a spouse or civil partner, Scottish succession law grants what are known as legal rights, a fixed entitlement to a share of the deceased's moveable estate that exists independently of the will and cannot be removed by it. A surviving spouse or civil partner is entitled to one third of the net moveable estate if the deceased left children, or one half if there were none.

Moveable estate broadly covers cash, investments, vehicles and personal possessions, and importantly it excludes heritable property, which is land and buildings such as the family home. This distinction matters a great deal in practice: legal rights can guarantee a spouse a meaningful share of savings and other moveable assets, while the house itself, if left to someone else under an unrevised will, falls outside that protection entirely. A surviving spouse choosing to claim legal rights instead of what the will provides has to elect between the two; they cannot claim both. The wider operation of these rights, including how they interact with the rest of the estate, is set out in how Scottish legal rights work when children make a claim on the estate, and the equivalent position for children rather than a spouse is covered in what Scottish children can inherit and at what age.

Why the two systems diverged

The difference is not accidental or an oversight in either jurisdiction; it reflects the separate historical development of English and Scots law over centuries, with Scotland retaining a civilian-influenced system of succession that has always protected close family through fixed rights rather than relying on the will itself, or a rule about the effect of marriage, to achieve fairness. England's approach, by contrast, developed around freedom of testation, the idea that a person may leave their estate to whoever they choose, with statutory interventions like section 18 designed to guard against a specific and foreseeable problem: an outdated will surviving a major life event it was never written to anticipate.

Neither system is more protective than the other overall, they simply protect in different ways and at different points. England solves the outdated-will problem by cancelling the document altogether on marriage, forcing a fresh start. Scotland solves it, only partially, by guaranteeing a spouse a fixed share regardless of what an old document says, while leaving the rest of the document, including gifts of the house, entirely intact. Anyone with connections to both systems, for instance an English will made before moving to Scotland, or a Scottish will made before relocating south, should take specific advice, since moving to Scotland with an existing English will can create exactly the kind of mismatch this guide is warning against.

Should I still rewrite my will after marrying in Scotland?

Yes, in almost every case where the existing will was not written with the marriage in mind. Because a pre-marriage Scottish will remains valid, the practical risk is not that your spouse receives nothing at all, since legal rights provide a floor, but that the will continues to direct assets, and particularly the house, to whoever it named before the wedding: perhaps an ex-partner, a sibling, or a friend from an earlier stage of life. Legal rights cannot touch heritable property, so a house left to someone else in an unrevised will stays with them even after the marriage, regardless of the couple's actual wishes.

Rewriting a will after marriage is a straightforward exercise for a solicitor experienced in Scots succession law, and it is far simpler to do proactively than to leave a mismatch for the family, and potentially the courts, to untangle later. It is also the moment to review who has been nominated on any life insurance policy or pension scheme, since those nominations do not update themselves either. If new cover is being arranged as part of getting finances in order for a marriage, comparing options is straightforward through getting life insurance quotes, and reviewing an existing policy written in trust for a previous partner is equally important, a topic covered in how a life insurance payout is treated when a policy is held in trust.

What actually happens if nothing is changed

It helps to walk through a concrete example, because the abstract legal position can sound less serious than it actually is in practice. Suppose a Scottish will was made ten years ago, leaving the family home and the bulk of savings to a sibling, with smaller cash legacies to two nieces. The person who wrote it then marries, and takes no further action. Nothing about that marriage changes the will at all. On death, the sibling still inherits the house exactly as the will directs, because heritable property sits outside the reach of legal rights entirely.

The surviving spouse is not left with nothing, because legal rights guarantee a share of the moveable estate, the cash and investments, regardless of what the will says. But if most of the family's wealth is tied up in the house rather than in savings, that guarantee can turn out to be worth very little in practice, while the sibling receives an asset the couple may well have intended to pass to the new spouse. This is precisely the gap between "not left destitute" and "receives what the couple actually wanted", and it is a gap that only a new or updated will can close.

How to actually update a Scottish will after marriage

The process itself is neither expensive nor complicated, which makes the risk of leaving it even less justifiable. A solicitor practising in Scots succession law can either draft a completely new will, revoking the old one expressly, or prepare a codicil, a short additional document that amends specific provisions while leaving the rest of the original will intact. For most people who have married and want their spouse clearly provided for, a new will is the cleaner option, since it avoids the risk of an old document and a codicil being read together in a way that creates ambiguity.

At the same time as updating the will, it is worth reviewing every other document that names a beneficiary, since none of them are automatically updated by marriage either. That includes the expression of wish held by a pension scheme, the trust deed on any life insurance policy, and any nomination held by an employer's death-in-service scheme. A will only controls the estate; it has no effect on assets that pass by nomination outside the estate altogether, so a spouse can be fully provided for in a new will and still be excluded from a pension lump sum simply because an old nomination naming someone else was never changed.

Just as marriage does not revoke a Scottish will, divorce does not automatically revoke it either, though Scots law does provide that certain provisions in favour of a former spouse are treated as if that person had died before the testator, unless the will states a contrary intention. This is a narrower, more surgical rule than the wholesale revocation that follows marriage in England, and it means an old Scottish will can continue operating largely as written even after a divorce, with only the specific gifts to the former spouse falling away. Civil partnerships are treated in the same way as marriages throughout Scots succession law, so everything above applies equally whether the relationship is a marriage or a civil partnership.

The position in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

For contrast, and because many families span the border, it is worth being clear about the rule that does not apply in Scotland. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, marriage automatically revokes any earlier will under section 18 of the Wills Act 1837, meaning a person who marries without making a new will is generally treated as having died intestate, with their estate distributed under the statutory intestacy rules rather than by their own wishes. The narrow exception is a will expressly made in contemplation of a specific forthcoming marriage, which survives if the marriage in question actually takes place. Anyone marrying in England, Wales or Northern Ireland with an existing will from before a relationship should treat writing a brand new will as essential, not optional, precisely because the old one will have already ceased to have effect.

Frequently asked questions

Does marriage cancel a will in Scotland?

No. Section 18 of the Wills Act 1837, which revokes a will on marriage, applies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scots law has no equivalent rule, so a Scottish will made before the wedding remains valid afterwards. It may still no longer say what you want.

So does my new spouse get nothing?

Not necessarily. Scottish legal rights give a surviving spouse or civil partner a claim on the moveable estate whatever the will says: one third if there are children, one half if there are none. Heritable property such as the house falls outside that claim.

Should I still rewrite my will after marrying in Scotland?

Yes, if the existing one leaves your estate elsewhere. A will made before the marriage still governs, so an ex-partner or a sibling named in it will inherit unless you change it. Rewriting is quick; leaving it can produce a result nobody in the family intended.