Most people picture a will being signed the same way: a pen, a signature line on the last page, and a full name written out in front of witnesses. But people who draft their own wills don’t always follow the script. Sometimes the signature line gets skipped entirely.
When that happens, the family is left with a hard question. If the person who made the will initialed every page of the document but never signed the signature page, is the will still valid? Or does the missing signature mean the estate passes as if there were no will at all?
That was the issue in Jones v. Jones, No. 01-20-00073-CV, 649 S.W.3d 577 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] March 29, 2022). The court had to decide whether a father’s initials on the first six pages of a will he typed himself satisfied the Texas signature requirement, and whether the witnesses who watched him initial it had properly attested the will.
Facts & Procedural History
Wendell Mark Jones married Ladan Jamshidi Jones in 1979. They had three children, including Jonathan Jones. Ladan died on January 27, 1995. On June 11, 1995, Wendell married Jeannine Darlene Norris Jones.
Wendell and Jeannine signed their wills that same day, right after the wedding ceremony and reception. Wendell drafted and typed both wills himself. The couple was flying to Oregon after the wedding, and they wanted to make sure Wendell’s minor children would be looked after if something happened to them on the trip.
Wendell’s will left his estate to Jeannine if she survived him and named her executor. If she didn’t survive him, the estate went to his children. The first six pages contained the substantive provisions: who got the property, who would serve as executor, and who would be guardian of his minor children. Each of those six pages had “W.M.J.” and “6-11-95” written in the bottom left corner.
The seventh page is where the trouble started. It had a blank for Wendell’s signature, but only his typed name appeared there. No handwritten signature. Below that was an attestation clause signed by four witnesses: David W. Evans, Diane L. Evans, Mohommad “Mo” Onvani, and Robert Michael “Mike” Woolsey. The self-proving affidavit had the same problem. It was signed by a notary but had only Wendell’s typed name, not his signature.
Wendell died on November 27, 2017. On January 17, 2018, Jeannine applied to probate the 1995 will in Travis County. Jonathan contested it, arguing the will was never validly executed.
At the September 2019 hearing, two of the four witnesses testified. Onvani said Wendell asked him to witness the will and that he saw Wendell initial it. Woolsey remembered the signing because it was “the only time before or since that [he’d] ever been asked to witness a legal document at a wedding.” He testified that Wendell declared the document to be his will, asked the witnesses to sign, and initialed and dated the pages in his presence. Woolsey said he didn’t have “any doubt that [Wendell] expected this to be his will.” Neither witness saw a handwritten signature on the signature page or the self-proving affidavit.
The probate court denied Jeannine’s application. It found the will had no signature, only Wendell’s typed name, and that there were no initials on the signature page or the self-proving affidavit. It also found that neither witness testified he saw Wendell initial the will. Since Wendell never signed, the court reasoned, the witnesses could not have attested to his signature. Jeannine appealed.
So the case came down to two questions. Do initials count as a signature on a formal, witnessed will? And if they do, did the witnesses properly attest to them?
What Does Texas Law Require to Sign and Witness a Will?
To understand the dispute, we first have to look at what the Estates Code requires for a valid will. Under Texas Estates Code Section 251.051, “[e]xcept as otherwise provided by law,” a will must be (1) in writing, (2) signed by the testator in person, or by another person on the testator’s behalf in the testator’s presence and under the testator’s direction, and (3) “attested by two or more credible witnesses who are at least 14 years of age and who subscribe their names to the will in their own handwriting in the testator’s presence.”
Notice what the statute does not say. It doesn’t say what a signature has to look like or where on the page it has to go. That gap has been filled by decades of Texas case law, and the courts have been forgiving. As the court put it, “Texas courts have been lenient regarding the location and form of a ‘signature.'” Texas courts have accepted an “X” as a signature. They have accepted a rubber stamp of the testator’s name. They have accepted a will typed on a typewriter where the testator “signed” by typing her name. And they have accepted a signature that used only the testator’s middle and last names instead of the full name typed on the will.
What matters is intent. The maker has to intend the name or mark to be a signature, meaning it shows approval of the document as his will.
The witness side works similarly. An attesting witness is just a witness to the testator’s signature. The witnesses don’t need to read the will, and they don’t even need to know it’s a will. And when a will isn’t self-proved, it isn’t invalid. It just means the will has to be proved another way. Under Section 256.153(b), a will that is not self-proved “may be proved by the sworn testimony or affidavit of one or more of the subscribing witnesses to the will taken in open court.” That’s why the missing signature on Wendell’s self-proving affidavit didn’t end the case. Jeannine conceded the will wasn’t self-proved and proved it through live testimony instead.
Are Initials Enough to Sign a Texas Will?
The court said yes, as long as the testator intended the initials to be his signature.
Texas courts had already held that a signature by initials is enough to execute a will, whether handwritten or witnessed, if it is testamentary in character. In Trim v. Daniels, 862 S.W.2d 8 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1992, writ denied), a short statement handwritten on the back of a greeting card and initialed by the decedent was a valid handwritten will. In In re Estate of Matteson, No. 05-12-01420-CV (Tex. App.—Dallas July 2, 2013, no pet.) (mem. op.), a man made handwritten changes to his previously signed, typed will and initialed them. Three witnesses signed after him. The Dallas court held his initials were a valid signature because the witnesses testified he asked them to witness the changes he was making to his will and that the document was his last will.
Jonathan argued that a signature inside the body of a will only counts on handwritten wills, not formal witnessed ones. The court disagreed, pointing to Matteson and to In re Estate of Romancik, 281 S.W.3d 592 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2008, no pet.), where the testator’s signature appeared in the section of his typed will titled “REVOCATION OF WILLS—CODICILS,” not on the signature line. In both cases the mark counted because the testator meant it as his signature. As Romancik put it, “The key inquiry, however, remains whether the testator intended the mark to constitute an expression of his testamentary intent.”
That left the intent question. Here the court relied on Mortgage Bond Corp. of New York v. Haney, 105 S.W.2d 488 (Tex. App.—Beaumont 1937, writ ref’d). In Haney, the testator signed with a mark, and a witness testified he saw her “sign” the will and heard her declare it to be her will. That was enough. The Beaumont court held “any question of the intent of the testator that the ‘mark’ was intended by her as her signature was fully met.”
Jeannine had the same kind of evidence. Wendell wrote the will himself. He gathered four witnesses at his wedding. He asked at least one of them to witness his will. He initialed six pages in front of Onvani and Woolsey, and he declared the document to be his will. The probate court’s finding that neither witness saw him initial the will was simply wrong. Both said they did, and nobody contradicted them.
Jonathan pointed the other way. His father wrote the will, so he knew there was a blank for his signature. He didn’t sign it. And Jonathan described his father as “fastidious,” someone who would not have made that kind of mistake. In Jonathan’s view, the blank signature line meant the will was unfinished.
The court rejected that argument. Once the initials count as a signature, the blank signature line doesn’t tell you much about intent. And if a missing handwritten signature could always prove the testator didn’t intend to sign, then no other mark could ever satisfy the statute. That would be contrary to all of the Texas cases accepting an “X,” a stamp, or initials. The court also noted that Jonathan admitted his father’s will was “never something that [he] discussed with [his] dad,” and he didn’t know about the will until it was filed. Jonathan offered nothing showing that Wendell didn’t approve the document as his will.
Given that record, the court held there could be no reasonable disagreement that Wendell initialed the pages to show his approval of the document as his will. The initials satisfied Section 251.051, and the evidence was legally insufficient to support the probate court’s findings to the contrary.
Did the Witnesses Properly Attest the Will?
The attestation question was really the same question. The probate court’s reasoning was that Wendell never signed, so the witnesses couldn’t have seen him sign what they were attesting to.
Once the court of appeals held the initials were Wendell’s signature, that reasoning fell apart. The witnesses don’t even have to watch the testator sign, as long as they can attest “from direct or circumstantial facts, that the testator in fact executed the document that they are signing.” Brown v. Traylor, 210 S.W.3d 648 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2006, no pet.). Onvani and Woolsey did more than that. They watched Wendell initial the will. So they attested to his signature.
Nobody disputed the rest. All four witnesses were over 14 and signed in Wendell’s presence. The court held the evidence conclusively established that the will was properly executed. It reversed, rendered judgment admitting the 1995 will to probate, and sent the case back for further proceedings.
The Takeaway
Jones shows that in Texas, a will isn’t invalid just because the signature line is blank. Initials, an “X,” or another mark can be a signature if the testator intended it to be one. The form and location of the mark matter far less than the evidence of intent.
That evidence usually comes from the witnesses. Wendell’s will survived because, more than 24 years later, two witnesses could still testify that he asked them to witness his will, declared it to be his will, and initialed it in front of them. Without that testimony, the result could easily have gone the other way. If you’re offering a will with a missing or unusual signature, find the witnesses early and pin down what they saw. If you’re contesting one, the blank signature line alone won’t win the case. You’ll need evidence that the testator didn’t intend the document to be his will.
And if you’re making a will, the lesson is simple. Sign every line that calls for a signature, in front of your witnesses, and sign the self-proving affidavit in front of the notary. Wendell’s family spent years in court over a will he could have finished with two signatures.
Our Fort Worth Probate Attorneys provide a full range of probate services to our clients, including helping with will contests and proving a will that was signed with initials or another unusual mark. Probate is what we do. Affordable rates, fixed fees, and payment plans are available. We provide step-by-step instructions, guidance, checklists, and more for completing the probate process.We have years of combined experience we can use to support and guide you with probate and estate matters. Call us today for a FREE consultation.
Disclaimer: The content of this website is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. The information presented may not apply to your situation and should not be acted upon without consulting a qualified probate attorney. We encourage you to seek the advice of a competent attorney with any legal questions you may have.
