Writing a will in Switzerland: the forms that hold up

Swiss law knows only two ordinary forms of will, and they carry exactly the same legal weight. A document that fits neither can be annulled, however clear your intentions were.

A third form exists, the oral will, but it is kept for extraordinary circumstances in which no other form is open to you, such as imminent danger of death. It is temporary and lapses shortly after those circumstances end. In practice it concerns almost nobody.

Budget rarely decides between the two ordinary forms. The complexity of your situation usually does. Simple assets and a family at peace with itself sit perfectly well with a handwritten will. A business, a jointly owned property, a blended family, an unmarried partner to protect, an heir you want to leave less than the others: those are the cases where the notarised deed earns its price. The notary checks your capacity of judgement, and a later challenge becomes markedly harder.

Three cumulative conditions, and not one of them is optional. The will has to be written entirely by hand, dated and signed by its author.

The mistakes that turn up most often in disputes:

• The will typed on a computer. Cause of annulment number one.
• The will written by two people. A couple cannot make a joint will in Switzerland. Each writes their own, or you go through a contract of succession.
• Corrections left undated and unsigned. A sentence crossed out and replaced years later without a word about it casts doubt on what was really wanted.
• The forgotten draft. Several undated versions lying around are sometimes worth a court battle lasting years.
• The statutory entitlement ignored. The document is not void, but the heirs who lost out can ask for it to be cut back.

A reference text to copy out word for word, adapting the underlined passages. It carries what contested wills most often lack: the revocation of earlier dispositions, unambiguous identification of the beneficiaries, and the appointment of an executor.

One word carries the difference: agreement. A will is unilateral, and you can change it or tear it up tomorrow morning without telling a soul. A contract of succession is signed with one or more heirs, before a notary and two witnesses, and from then on it cannot be changed unless every signatory agrees.

That rigidity is exactly the point. Three situations call for it:

• A renunciation. A child already helped during your lifetime can give up their statutory entitlement, which no will can impose.
• Passing on a business. The successor needs certainty, and a will that can be revoked overnight gives none.
• A blended family. The contract lets you settle the balance between a spouse and children from an earlier marriage with everyone's consent. The conflict gets resolved before it exists.

One consequence often comes as a surprise: once you have signed a contract of succession, your freedom to make large gifts afterwards is limited, since those gifts would empty the contract of its substance.

The law keeps a minimum share for certain heirs, the statutory entitlement (Pflichtteil / réserve héréditaire). The rest, the disposable part, goes to whoever you name, a person outside the family included. Readers arriving from the UK or the US know the idea as forced heirship, and some Swiss legal sites translate it as the compulsory portion. The English text of the Civil Code says statutory entitlement, and so does this page.

The revision that came into force on 1 January 2023 widened that freedom on two points. The descendants' entitlement fell from three quarters of their statutory share to half, and the parents' entitlement was abolished. In practice, you can now always decide what happens to at least half of your estate, whatever your family looks like.

So what can you decide freely? Pick your family situation: the shares are calculated under the law in force since 2023.

It is the question that comes up most often, and the answer changed in 2023. Where the children are the couple's own, the most the law allows is this: your spouse takes half the estate outright, which is the disposable part, and the usufruct of the other half, the half that goes to the children. Before 2023 that outright share was capped at a quarter.

A usufruct means the spouse keeps the use of the assets and the income from them, living in the family home or collecting the rent, while the children hold the ownership. The children inherit in full when the second parent dies. This is the most effective way of letting a widow or a widower stay at home.

Two things to know. The combination only works fully where the children are the couple's own. And the usufruct takes the place of the spouse's statutory inheritance right; it does not come on top of it. That is a trade-off, and it is the textbook case where a notary earns the fee.

Three further tools round out the protection: the marital agreement, better known as the marriage contract, which acts on the marital property regime before the estate even opens; the beneficiary clauses on your Pillar 3a savings and your life insurance, which largely fall outside the estate; and the allocation of the family home, which the law lets a surviving spouse request.

A holographic will drafted to perfection but left in a drawer may never be found, or may surface after the estate has been divided.

Whichever option you pick, tell someone you trust that a will exists and where it is. That is the most effective step of the lot, and it costs nothing.

You can change a will as often as you like, and you never have to justify it. Three ways to go about it:

• Write a new will stating in so many words that it cancels and replaces all previous ones. That wording heads off more disputes than anything else.
• Destroy the document, which is enough to revoke it. You still have to track down every copy and tell whoever is holding one.
• Draw up a deed of revocation in one of the forms that are valid for a will.

Watch for the classic trap. A new will that does not expressly revoke the old one does not necessarily wipe it out, and the two may end up applying together, complementing each other on some points and contradicting each other on others. Always add the revocation sentence, and have the deposited document replaced.

Two moments call for a re-read. A divorce, a remarriage, a birth or the purchase of a property changes the picture. And a will written before 2023 stays valid, though the new entitlements can alter what it actually does: a clause leaving "the disposable part" no longer points to the same share it did on the day you wrote it.

Funere does not draft wills and does not give legal advice. Some situations go past the simple case: a blended family, a business, property, an unmarried partner to protect. For those, we pass your request on to estate-planning professionals working in Switzerland.