A Will and a Trust Are Signed Under Different Michigan Rules

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan estate planning attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated July 18, 2026.

The question of whether a family needs a will or a trust is usually answered by describing what each does. A different way in is to look at how each is made valid, because the two instruments are governed by separate parts of the Estates and Protected Individuals Code with separate formalities, and those formalities explain a good deal about when each one is the right tool.

A will is valid under MCL 700.2502(1) only if it is in writing, signed by the testator or in the testator’s name by another individual in the testator’s conscious presence and at the testator’s direction, and signed by at least two individuals, each within a reasonable time after witnessing the signing or the testator’s acknowledgment of the signature or of the will. A revocable trust is governed by the Michigan Trust Code, and its defining rule under MCL 700.7602 concerns revocability rather than witnesses.

Two Witnesses, Signing Within a Reasonable Time

The will formalities are strict about people and looser about timing than families expect. Two witnesses are required, and each must have witnessed either the signing itself or the testator’s acknowledgment of it. Acknowledgment counts, which means a testator who signed alone can validate the will by acknowledging the signature to two people who then sign.

The witnesses sign within a reasonable time after witnessing, rather than in the same sitting. That phrase is deliberately flexible, and it is also where a will can fail if the witnesses’ signatures are added long afterward without any record of when the witnessing occurred.

A will that does not meet those requirements can survive on a different footing. Under subsection (2), a document is valid as a holographic will, whether or not witnessed, if it is dated and if the testator’s signature and the document’s material portions are in the testator’s own handwriting. Subsection (3) allows intent that the document is a will to be shown by extrinsic evidence, including, for a holographic will, portions of the document that are not in the testator’s handwriting. Our Michigan wills page covers the statutory will form and what a will does at death.

A Trust Is Presumed Revocable, With a Date Attached

The trust rule runs the other direction. Under MCL 700.7602(1), unless the terms of a trust expressly provide that the trust is irrevocable, the settlor may revoke or amend it. Silence produces a revocable trust, which reverses the assumption clients bring from states where the default is the opposite.

The presumption has a starting date and exceptions. It does not apply to a trust created under an instrument executed before April 1, 2010, nor to a trust created by the exercise of certain powers of appointment or of a power held by a trustee in a fiduciary capacity. An older trust is read under the rule that governed when it was signed, which is one reason a trust drafted decades ago is worth reading rather than assuming.

Where a revocable trust is created or funded by more than one settlor, the section sets out how revocation and amendment work between them. Those rules matter for married couples with a joint trust, and they differ depending on whether the property in question is community property or not.

What the Difference in Formalities Is Telling You

A will is an instrument that speaks at death, and the witness requirement exists because the person who signed it will not be available to say what they meant. The formalities substitute for the testator’s testimony. A revocable trust is an instrument the settlor lives with, amends, and often serves as trustee of, and the law’s attention goes to whether it can be changed rather than to who watched it be signed.

That difference is also why the trust’s usefulness during life is the thing a will cannot match. A funded revocable trust has a trustee, and a successor trustee, in place while the settlor is alive, so incapacity is handled inside the instrument. A will does nothing until death, and the period before it is covered by other documents entirely.

The word funded is the one that decides whether any of that works. A trust holds only what has been retitled into it, and an unfunded trust manages nothing and avoids nothing, whatever its drafting. The presumption of revocability keeps the settlor in control, and it also means the settlor is the one who has to move the assets in. Our Michigan trust administration page covers what a trustee does once the settlor cannot.

Most Families End Up With Both

The choice is rarely one or the other in practice, and the formalities are part of the reason. A trust that has been funded governs the assets in it, and a will disposes of whatever was not retitled, including assets acquired after the trust was signed and never moved. A will that pours over into the trust is the ordinary way those two facts are reconciled.

Each instrument is then executed under its own rule. The will is signed with two qualifying witnesses. The trust is signed with attention to whether it says it is irrevocable, whether it predates April 1, 2010, and whether the assets it is meant to govern actually carry its name.

Which instrument a family needs first depends on what they own and how it is titled, and that is a question a title search and an account list answer faster than a description of the law does. We talk these questions through with you. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Choosing the Instrument, Then Executing It Correctly

A will with the wrong witnesses and a trust with nothing in it fail in the same practical way, and both failures are visible at signing to anyone reading the statute. At Neumann Law Group, we prepare wills and revocable trusts for families across Northern Michigan and statewide as part of our Michigan estate planning practice. If you would like us to look at your situation, call (800) 525-6386 or contact us through our website.