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S.D. Codified Laws § 29A-2-502

Holographic will--Validity of non-holographic will--Establishing intent

Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case In Re the Estate of Roehr (2001)

Most recently applied in Estate of Fox (March 2019)

Source: SL 1995, ch 167, § 2-502.

How often courts cite this section

20012010201910
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) A will is valid as a holographic will, whether or not witnessed, if the signature and material portions of the document are in the testator's handwriting.

(b) A will not valid as a holographic will must be:

(1) In writing;

(2) Signed by the testator or in the testator's name by some other individual in the testator's conscious presence and by the testator's direction; and

(3) Signed in the conscious presence of the testator by two or more individuals who, in the conscious presence of the testator, witnessed either the signing of the will or the testator's acknowledgment of that signature.

(c) Intent that the document constitute the testator's will can be established by extrinsic evidence, including, for holographic wills, portions of the document that are not in the testator's handwriting.

Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.