Who keeps the original copy of the will?

A missing original can be worked around in some circumstances and contested in others. That uncertainty is the reason to be deliberate about where it sits. A photocopy, however clean, is not the same document.

Each option has a trade. The person who made the will controls it, but may keep it somewhere only they know. The drafting attorney holds it in a file that depends on the practice; attorneys retire, and firms merge and close. If that attorney offers to hold it and the practice is settled, it can be a perfectly good answer, and the only thing left is to tell the executor which office it is.

Depositing the original with a court, where the law permits it, is another route. Your estate attorney can say whether it exists where you live, whether it suits your situation, and what happens to the original afterward. If you made the will while living in another state and have since moved here, ask whether anything about it should change.

A box raises a separate question when its renter dies, because access then turns on the terms of the rental and the law where the box sits. If the will is inside, the document meant to settle things may be behind a door nobody can open straight away. That is one reason to think about how a box is held as well as where it is.

A will does no good if the executor cannot find it. It does not need to be in the executor's hands, either; many people would rather it were not. Handing over the original also hands over the job of keeping it, sometimes to someone who has not agreed to that. A sealed envelope marked for the executor helps only if somebody knows the envelope exists.

A short written instruction does most of the work: where the original is, how the box is held, and who may be told. A photocopy of the will can sit with that instruction while the original stays put. Revise the instruction whenever the will changes, and remove the old photocopy so nobody acts on a superseded version. A codicil belongs with the will it amends, never in a separate drawer.

A box held by a trust, or rented jointly with the person who will act, keeps access from hanging on one life, and the ways a box can be held are set out on their own page. We don't advise on estate plans. The attorney who drafted the will is the right person to say which arrangement fits, and whether the deeds, trust papers and other estate originals should sit beside it.