When does the will get read?

Answer 1

you read a will when someone dies.

Contrary to what you see in movies and TV, there is seldom any sort of a formal will reading. The will is submitted to the probate court and they will appoint an executor to do what the will says, if possible.

Answer 2

Wills are no longer "read" to all the beneficiaries in the dramatic fashion one sees in movies and television where the family waits in rapt anticipation to see how much of the estate they will receive as if it is some sort of Survivor reality show with everyone worried about being voted off the show, or more accurately, written out of the will.

Nor is there any one single way wills are admitted to probate such that the original answer is valid in all states. It is more common for states to have a two tier system of probate, therefore there will be two answers in virtually every instance.

One tier is where a will appears to be properly executed. Such a will may be admitted to probate without prior notice to interested parties simply on proof by affidavit of one or more witness attesting to facts that prove that the will had been properly executed.

If a will is admitted in this administrative manner, executors are required to send a notice to the interested parties such as the named beneficiaries or presumptive heirs at law, within a short period of time AFTER the date the will is admitted to probate. This notice usually advises the interested parties of the date and place of probate, the identity of the executor and provides them with a copy of the probated will. This takes the place of the so-called "reading of the will" and informs everyone what they can expect. It also starts the clock running on the time within which they can contest the probate. Parties who wish to contest the probated will, then have a limited time within which to contest the will.

For example under the Ohio Revised Code the time period is two weeks. Under Illinois Compiled Statutes, the time is 14 days.

The second tier is where the will does not appear to have been properly executed, or another will has already been probated, or there are paragraphs crossed out or written over or any other type of special situation that a particular state decides requires probate by other than a simple administrative manner. In this tier a will would be admitted to probate only after a judicial hearing on the facts.

In this type of case, the court will require notice be given to all interested parties BEFORE admission to probate so that they will have notice and an opportunity to be heard as to why the will should or should not be admitted to probate. Even after a hearing, contested or otherwise, the executor may have to give the same type of notice to all interested parties after the court has admitted the will to probate.

There is no simple answer to this question. Procedures vary quite widely from state to state. In fact, some states might not even have statutes governing this process, but, like in New Jersey, the process of notification is spelled out in the Rules of Civil Procedure of the Courts rather than in the New Jersey Statutes.