Traditional Requirements in Executing a Will and Their Place in the Electronic Will; A Comparative Study of Iranian and American Law

In most legal systems of the world, the execution of a will requires the observance of certain requirements. These requirements, which traditionally deal with paper wills, have given rise to formal, holographic, and secret wills in Iranian law, and to formal, holographic, and notarized wills in American law. An important question that arises with the advancement of technology and the development of electronic communications is: if the testator wants to execute a will in the electronic space, what place will these traditional requirements have in it? In other words, are traditional requirements followed in executing an electronic will or not? In this article, an attempt is made to provide an answer to this question through the library method. In this regard, while reviewing the traditional requirements of executing a will, the hypothesis is proved that in Iranian law, traditional requirements are followed in electronic will-making; requirements that, due to some shortcomings in the field of legislation, have prevented the electronic execution of formal and secret wills. In American law, however, there is a disagreement: on the one hand, the famous Castro and Horton cases in judicial proceedings and the Uniform Electronic Wills Act imply that electronic wills follow traditional requirements. On the other hand, the Nevada Statute, after deviation from traditional requirements, has introduced new requirements for executing electronic wills.