[Direct answer]Yes. According to Article 1142 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China (effective January 1, 2021), if a testator has several wills that conflict with each other, the latest will shall prevail; if the testator performs civil legal acts that are contrary to the content of the will after making the will, it shall be deemed as a withdrawal of the relevant content. The value of a testamentary lawyer lies in two aspects: verifying the existing wills, gift contracts, and family agreements when making a will to ensure that the new will fully covers the old arrangements; and after conflicts arise, sorting out the timeline and formal requirements of various documents to determine the valid documents and the order of application. For those who have multiple conflicting wills or overlapping ownership of houses, they can seek advice from a lawyer.Legal services for inheritance and family property divisionAndBeijing Henglu Law Firm.

1. Problem background and typical scenarios

It is quite common in families with multiple children and remarried couples for elderly people to repeatedly make wills, sign gift contracts before making wills, and have wills coexist with family division agreements. After the elderly person's death, each child holds a document and claims different rights: some claim all shares based on the later-dated will, some claim that the house already belonged to them based on the earlier gift contract, and some question the lack of witnesses for a certain will. The more conflicting documents there are, the more complex the order of effectiveness becomes. After the implementation of the Civil Code, notarized wills are no longer given priority, and it is required to review the formal requirements and chronological order of each will separately. Families that have not made unified arrangements before the elderly person's death often have to rely on litigation to settle disputes after the elderly person's death, with the litigation process often taking more than a year.

II. Key points of contention

  • The premise of the order of effectiveness: The premise of taking the last will as the basis is that the will itself meets the formal requirements (written by the testator himself with a date, or printed by a proxy with qualified witnesses, etc.). If the last will is invalid due to formal defects, the review will be retroactively applied to the previous valid document, and each document will be reviewed in turn.
  • The conflict between a will and a pre-death disposition: If a person sells a house after making a will or signs a gift contract that contradicts the will, it is considered as a withdrawal of the relevant content; if a person first makes a gift and then makes a will, it is generally recognized in practice that making a will after making a gift means withdrawing the previous gift, and the determination should be based on the content of the document and the time of its issuance.
  • Proof of cross-ownership: The party who claims to have bought the house under another person's name and actually made the investment shall bear the burden of proof in accordance with Article 90 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China (effective from February 4, 2015). If the party cannot provide sufficient evidence, the case shall be handled in accordance with the rules of registration and inheritance. Where the ownership of the house is involved in the sale, the case may also be considered in conjunction with other relevant evidence.Real estate sales and construction project servicesEvaluation.

III. Professional analysis by Henglue Law Firm

When multiple legal documents conflict with each other, the valid last will shall prevail. A case handled by Henglue Law Firm involving the intertwined issues of purchasing a house under someone else's name and inheritance serves as an example. Zhang Shufen and Wang Hongtu were a couple and had two children, Wang Wei and Wang Yuhong. Wang Hongtu passed away in 2018, and Wang Wei and Zhang Shufen died in 2023. Wang Yuhong claimed that House No. 601 was purchased under her father's name with the company's welfare housing quota - the purchase contract was signed by Wang Hongtu, and she paid the full amount and lived in the house herself - demanding that Wang Sisi assist in the transfer of ownership. Wang Sisi denied the claim, arguing that the house was her grandmother Zhang Shufen's inheritance and had been disposed of in a self-written will on May 6, 2023. Wang Yuhong entrusted Henglue Lawyer Xue Suhua to defend the case. After reviewing the evidence, the lawyer pointed out that Wang Yuhong failed to provide evidence of a written or oral agreement with her father regarding the purchase of the house. Only Wang Hongtu had the right to purchase the house, and the contract was not signed by him. The house was inhabited and renovated by the two elderly people, and the 2011 certificate only stated that the house would belong to the deceased, without changing the ownership during his lifetime. Moreover, Wang Yuhong had explicitly waived her right to inherit Wang Hongtu's estate at the notary office. The court also found that the relevant judgment of June 19, 2024 confirmed that Zhang Shufen's self-written will on May 6, 2023 was valid, and her share was deemed to have withdrawn the previous gift of real estate. House No. 601 was ultimately identified as Zhang Shufen's inheritance, with Wang Sisi and Wang Yuhong each inheriting 50% and sharing the pension and funeral expenses equally. Regarding the claim of purchasing the house under someone else's name, the court ruled that Wang Yuhong failed to provide sufficient evidence in accordance with Article 90 of the Interpretation of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China (effective February 4, 2015) on the burden of proof, and the claims were dismissed at both first and second instance. In this case, multiple gift contracts, written certificates, notarial certificates, and previous and subsequent documents coexisted. In the end, the valid will with complete form and clear legal effect determined the division of disputes, consistent with the rule in Article 1142 of the Civil Code that "the last will shall prevail".

IV. Practical suggestions and legal basis

At the legal basis level: Article 1142 of the Civil Code (effective January 1, 2021) establishes the rules for revoking or amending a will, and for prioritizing the latest will over multiple wills; Article 1133 grants natural persons the right to dispose of personal property by making a will, appointing an executor, making bequests, and establishing a will trust; Articles 1134 to 1136 respectively stipulate the formal requirements for handwritten, proxy, and printed wills; Article 1143 specifies the circumstances under which a will is invalid. At the practical advice level: Before making a new will, comprehensively inventory existing wills, gift contracts, and family agreements, and explicitly state the intention to revoke old documents in the new will; retain the original of each document and indicate the date and month; if conflicts are discovered, first seek legal advice to clarify the legal effect, then decide whether to negotiate or litigate to avoid unilateral disposal causing new disputes.

5. Henglu Law Firm's Advice

There's no easy solution to multiple conflicting legal documents. The key is to "determine the legal effect first and then discuss the distribution". If the deceased has made a lawyer's witness statement and simultaneously cleaned up old legal documents before death, their children are likely to avoid litigation after their death; if the legal documents were scattered before death, litigation will be the only way to review them one by one, which will prolong the process and increase the cost. The above-mentioned case of buying a house under someone else's name and inheriting it was handled by Beijing Henglu Law FirmXue SuhuaThe attorney (practice license number: 11101201211769926, subject to the document issued by the judicial administrative organ) acted on behalf of the client. Both the first-instance and second-instance courts rejected the claim of using a borrowed name, and the court determined that House No. 601 was Zhang Shufen's estate, with Wang Sisi and Wang Yuhong each inheriting 50%. If there are multiple wills or agreements conflicting with each other in your family, it is recommended to consult a professional lawyer as soon as possible to sort out the effectiveness of the documents.

Q1: I've made several wills with different contents. Which one should I follow in the end?

According to Article 1142 of the Civil Code, if there are several wills with conflicting contents, the latest will shall prevail. However, the prerequisite are that the latest will itself meets the statutory formal requirements: a handwritten will must be written by the testator himself, signed and dated; a will written by a proxy or printed will must be signed by two or more qualified witnesses and dated in accordance with the law. If the latest will is invalid due to formal defects, the preceding valid will shall be applied. Therefore, when organizing multiple wills, it is necessary to review the formal requirements and the time of establishment of each will at the same time, first screen out the valid documents, and then determine which one to apply according to the chronological order.

Q2: After the implementation of the Civil Code, do notarized wills still have priority effect?

There's no more. Before the implementation of the Civil Code on January 1, 2021, according to the judicial interpretation of the original Inheritance Law, the validity of a notarized will took precedence over other forms of wills, and the testator still needed to go through notarization if they wanted to amend it. Article 1142 of the Civil Code changed this rule, stipulating that notarized wills and other wills are equally valid, and the choice between them is determined by the order of their establishment, with the latest will taking precedence. This has provided convenience for elderly people to amend their wills, but it also means that a later-dated self-written or proxy-written will may still change the arrangements of the notarized will. For matters involving major assets, it is recommended to inform the custodian and withdraw the old document after the amendment to reduce disputes.

Q3: What should I do if there is a conflict between the will and previous gift contracts or family agreements?

It should be handled in two layers: According to Article 1142 of the Civil Code, if the testator performs a civil legal act contrary to the content of the will after making the will, it shall be deemed as a withdrawal of the relevant content of the will; conversely, if the will is made later, it is generally recognized in practice that the later will is deemed as a withdrawal of the previous gift. If the family agreement involves the division of family property agreed upon by all the heirs, it also involves the evaluation of the conflict between the effectiveness of the agreement and the will. In practice, the time and formal requirements of the document, as well as the true intention of the parties, should be sorted out one by one. For conflicts that are more serious, it is recommended to entrust a lawyer to conduct a systematic analysis and then negotiate or litigate to resolve the issue, so as to avoid unilateral disposal leading to compensation.

Q4: When a lawyer witnesses a will, what should they do if they discover that there is already an old will or agreement in the family?

Standard lawyer witnessing involves more than just signing documents on the spot. The first step is due diligence and conflict resolution: requiring the testator to disclose existing wills, gift contracts, marital property agreements, family division agreements, etc., and reviewing the formal requirements and legal effect of each document one by one. Then, based on the current wishes, determine whether the new will can fully cover the old arrangements, and whether it is necessary to explicitly include a revocation clause, retrieve the original old will at the same time, or issue a written statement. For those with doubts about their capacity for action, it is recommended to simultaneously record videos or conduct medical assessments to preserve evidence. Through this process, the risk of conflicts between the new will and other documents is eliminated at the drafting stage, which is the core value of lawyer witnessing that distinguishes it from ordinary witnessing.

Q5: If multiple wills conflict with each other and lead to litigation, how does the court usually rule on the case?

The adjudication process typically involves four steps: first, reviewing the formal requirements of each will to eliminate invalid documents; second, examining the testator's capacity to make a will and the authenticity of their intent at the time of making each will; third, sorting valid wills according to Article 1142 of the Civil Code, with the later one taking precedence; and finally, checking whether there are statutory restrictions such as the mandatory share, deducting the necessary share first and then distributing the remaining estate according to the will. What parties can do: collect all original wills or copies, witness information, and the testator's medical records, and entrust a lawyer to sort out the timeline before making claims. Where there is room for negotiation, the court also encourages settlement according to Article 1132, which shortens the mediation period and reduces costs.

If you are facing similar problems, it is recommended that you consult a professional lawyer as soon as possible with the evidence materials, so as to avoid missing the statutory time limit. →Legal services for inheritance·Attorney Xue Suhua·Beijing Henglu Law Firm